Chocolate Oatmeal Porter Cupcakes

Yesterday I was in the mood to bake and we had a dinner invitation over to our friends so I decided that would be the perfect excuse to bring dessert. Kevin's latest issue of Beer Advocate had just come in the mail and a cupcake recipe in it caught my eye. Beer + Cupcakes? Sounds like a winning combo to me! I didn't used the beer called for in the recipe but I don't think that make a big difference at all.



Aren't they so pretty?



Melting the chocolate for the ganache.



I have to say I'm a big fan of the dip and twirl ganache for topping cupcakes. So much easier and cleaner than frosting cupcakes.



The recipe was supposed to make 24 cupcakes but I made some big ones and some little ones so I wound up with 16 big cupcakes and 13 mini cupcakes. They're a darker, richer chocolate flavor and not overly sweet. I refer to them as grown up cupcakes. The recipe calls for malt power instead of white sugar so it has a different flavor to it. I think you can tell the beer is there but it's not overwhelming. They're a little dryer than your usual box mix, but that seems to be the case with most homemade cupcakes.  I think the recipe could use some tweaking but it's not a bad one to start with.