dark chocolate guinness muffins

Thanks for all the great comments on yesterday's post. I am glad I'm not the only one in the gokiburi hate club.

Let's move onto food shall we...I had seen a post on Oswego Tea (no longer online) and wanted to try making the chocolate guinness cake. But I thought a cake was too much for just Satoshi and I. Actually, I could just imagine myself eating most of it...it wasn't a pretty sight.

So, I looked through my muffin cookbook and found a savory recipe using dark beer. I like this book because the recipes only make 6 muffins, the perfect amount for Satoshi and I.

I compared the basic savory muffin recipe with the basic sweet muffin recipe in the book and realized the only difference was the amount of sugar and the addition of salt.

So, I used the amount of beer from the savory recipe and mixed it in with the double chocolate muffin recipe in the book. I also added some cinnamon, pecans and vanilla extract which were ingredients in the chocolate guinness cake recipe.

This is the recipe I came up with:
Dark Chocolate Guinness Muffins--makes 6

6 grams baking powder
140 grams flour
10 grams unsweetened cocoa powder, I used Droste
1 egg
80 grams brown sugar
50 grams butter, measured then melted
70 mililiters Guinness beer
25 grinds of fresh cinnamon
45 grams chocolate chips, I used 60% Ghiradelli
handful of pecans, measured then chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sift the baking powder, flour and cocoa, set aside.
Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
In another bowl, beat the egg and sugar for about 2 minutes.
Add the beer and melted butter, beat for another 10-15 seconds.
Add the pecans and chocolate to the the sifted dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture.
Stir with a spatula and mix until just incorporated.
Fill 6 muffin papers as evenly as possible.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.

NOTES: I ended up baking the muffins for about 23 minutes. The measurements I have listed are in metric, if you can get a hold of a metric scale it is probably more accurate than trying to convert to American measurements.

This muffin is quite light and there is a little bitter aftertaste (probably from the beer). But the addition of chocolate chips keeps it a little sweet. Though it isn't as dark or dense looking as the original chocolate guinness cake, I think it would still be nice as a snack or even good for breakfast on the run.