Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I made a batch of festive chocolate Guinness cupcakes to celebrate one of my favorite holidays. I started with a recipe from the Food Network, and I switched it up a bit to make it a little healthier. These make a lot of cupcakes, but this recipe also divides in half nicely. Then you’ll just have half a bottle of beer to finish while you bake. 🙂 (If you decide to go this route, use a full egg and one egg white.) Or, the cupcakes also freeze well, so you can keep them for quite a while if you decide to make the full batch. These have actually become a favorite at our house even when it isn’t anywhere close to St. Patrick’s Day. I hope you like them as much as we do!

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

3/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

2 cups sugar

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 bottle or can of Guinness

1/2 cup canola oil

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 eggs

3/4 cup non-fat sour cream

Before you begin, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour and baking soda in a large bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, blend the Guinness, oil and vanilla. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and blend until incorporated. Then mix in the sour cream. Gradually mix the dry blend into the wet blend. Spray 24 muffin tins with cooking spray and divide the batter equally. Bake for about 12 minutes, rotate the pans, and bake for another 12 minutes. They should have a nice little dome and be set in the middle.

Sprinkle with a fine dusting of powdered sugar if you wish.

These go very well with a glass of green sparkling wine. 🙂 Again, we chose what has become our sparkling wine of the year, Sofia Blanc de Blancs. It is so fun to be able to pick up just one or two little individual cans at the store when we are having a festive moment. Sláinte!