April Fool's and my hubby's b-day!

My husband wouldn't give me ANY ideas on what he wanted to do for his b-day! I was at a loss until he decided to plan it himself at a local bar. Fine with me but what could I do to contribute?! If you know me (which you probably don't) I LOVE birthdays! I like to make people feel really special and important because you only get one day a year that's all yours. So anyway, I knew I wanted to bring a cake to the party and of course balloons but what kind of cake? Keith's new infatuation is Guinness beer so I thought hmmm...very stout and kind of coffeeish so I wonder? Cupcakes just seemed to make so much more sense small, bite-sized and no-mess clean up! So this is what I came up with:

Chocolate Guinness mini-cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

This recipe is so insanely easy you might just make them all the time! I try to be health conscious all while keeping the integrity and flavor of the things that I make .


Cupcakes:

1 box cake mix

1/2 cup plain applesauce ( I substitute applesauce for the oil. Keeps the cupcakes moist and cuts the calories and fat from the oil.

1 1/3 cups Guinness beer

2 eggs

Mix until well incorporated either in mixer or by hand. Don't over mix if you do you'll encourage the starches to develop and you'll have hard dense cupcakes.

You can use a regular cupcake mold or mini whichever you prefer. Line the mold with the paper cups and then spray the with non-stick cooking spray making sure you get the surface of the mold. If some of your cupcakes rise above the cup they won't stick to the pan.
Cut 1/2 the batter in a freezer bag and cut the tip (this just makes the batter so much easier to handle and your liners won't pull out of the cups and blah,blah, blah.

Pipe to fill 3/4 of the cup and bake for 15-19 min. Prick the center of a cupcake with a toothpick and if it grabs just a bit of the cake their done!

Cream Cheese Icing:

2- 8oz. Pkgs. of Cream Cheese (room temperature)

1 stick of butter (room temperature)

1/2 cup to 1 cup of powdered sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla extract

1 tsp. of lemon zest and 1 squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Cream together the cream cheese and the butter until nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice. After well incorporated add the powdered sugar a little bit at a time so you don't have an explosion!

Fill a freezer bag with the yummy goodness and pipe in a swirly motion on the tops of the cupcakes. Finish with the chocolate sprinkles and Voila!