chocolate stout muffins

St. Patrick’s Day does not do a whole lot for me. Inevitably I forget to wear green, it's not a stay-at-home paid official holiday, people turn their beer undesirable shades of green, and I bear no personal attachment because I'm not Irish. However, a lot of my very dear friends are Irish, I love beer (without food coloring), my favorite color is green, and shamrocks are extremely adorable (and lucky!). And not that I need an excuse to bake really: I just could not resist doing something for St. Patty's Day.

Randomly the other day I was poking around the PETA website and saw a recipe for vegan chocolate stout cupcakes. I was intrigued and inspired- most of all I was excited about taste testing several different stout beers and paring them with chocolate for the ultimate taste explosion. I had grandiose visions of myself in my kitchen with little shot glasses of fine expensive stout and little pieces of rich dark organic chocolate. I would be wearing fine linen pants and my hair would be pulled into a perfect little bun and posh, square framed glasses would be perched on my nose. I would take small sips of stout and then delicate crisp bites of chocolate and find the perfect pairing for my little cupcakes. I would be the hit of some random St. Patrick’s Day party and I would gain 20 new blog subscribers all thanks to my delicious chocolate stout cupcakes.

In reality, my little fantasy is pretty far from this image. There's me in Kroger without a list, without having read the recipe in a week and have since forgotten every single ingredient besides beer and chocolate and it's at the end of a long, long day. I have frazzled hair, am wearing cheap cotton pants and definitely have no posh glasses to speak of. I am perusing the beer aisle suddenly forgetting if it's stout or lager I'm looking for. Hrm. I finally decided on the Yuengling lager in its pretty green bottles and easy to swallow price tag. Then I get home and my internet is not working so I am unable to read the recipe. Honestly, this did not dampen my spirits one bit. After my last experiment with the peanut butter and jelly muffins my confidence level has raised significantly with creating a recipe from scratch. I have memorized certain ratios of things over the years and know when a batter is created whether or not it needs more liquid or flour to turn out just right. This comes from some pretty intense nerdy baking habits of reading every cookbook I can get my hands on, reading lots of baking blogs and doing lots of experiments in my tiny kitchen. It's all worth it.

So I arrived home from Kroger, immediately turned on the new Kylie Minogue album "X" and cracked open two beers. One for me, one for the muffins. I got to work with as much confidence as ever and had a wonderful time mixing, drinking, pouring, drinking and of course, lots of dancing and singing into my wooden spoon.

Before I even started this little experiment though I knew I did not want to follow the recipe exactly. There was too much sugar and fat in the version on the PETA website for me. I wanted something a little less sweet. I really wanted the beer flavor to come through but did not think it would pair well with a cloying sweet confection. Plus, after a night of heaving drinking the last thing a person wants is more sugar in their system. So, I added just a little molasses and touch of agave and what came out is more like brown Irish soda bread, than a cupcake. But it pairs so nicely with the vegan sour cream icing which contains sugar and vanilla. The end result is a muffin with icing kind of resembling a pint with a frothy top. The first moment of the bite tastes like beer, and then the savory/sweet flavors of molasses, flax seed and agave come through. You will get perfect little beer muffins just waiting to be gobbled up by hungry party-goers. Or, by hungover party-goers. Either way, these things rock- holiday or no holiday, Irish or not.

*a note about beer and stout. a lot of beers and wine are not vegan! it's easy to find out though the handy internet. just google 'vegan beer' or something similar and there are several web pages devoted to informing you on such things. if you are not vegan or don't care, use Guinness, because that's the right thing to do.

you will need these:
2 mixing bowls
wooden spoon
2 muffin tins

dry ingredients:
2 C unbleached self rising flour (white lilly makes an incredible version)
1/3 C cocoa powder (use the good stuff here since it's flavor will really shine through)
pinch of salt

liquid ingredients:
1 C beer or stout
1/2 C unsulfured organic molasses
1/2 C agave nectar
2 T flax seeds blended with 4 T cold water until a thick mass forms

sour cream icing:
generous 1 C vegan sour cream (i used tofutti and it was delicious)
1/2 C brown fine grain organic sugar
seeds of one vanilla bean or 1 tsp. vanilla non-alcohol extract

pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

grease two muffins pans or enough for 18 muffins

combine the dry ingredients and set aside

whisk the liquid ingredients until well combined

add liquid mixture to flour mixture and mix until just combined

divide evenly among the muffin tins and bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean

while muffins are cooking whip the sour cream with the sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy

let the muffins cool completely before slathering with icing otherwise you will have a runny mess on your hands. i speak from experience here, however this runny mess is super delicious so it's up to you if you want to get messy or not

my suggestion is to put the icing in the fridge for a little while before icing them. i've been icing them one at a time as i serve them and this has seemed to work best. store them in the fridge. and because this recipe has no oil or fat, they will get dry in a couple days. so eat up!