Ginger Beer Cupcakes

I had to make these cupcakes. I have been thinking about nothing but making ginger beer cupcakes for the last week. You can thank my dear friend Lisa from spicy icecream for that. I hardly ever used to drink ginger beer, but her recent obsession with it somehow triggered something in my brain and I have been going nuts for it. I was even lucky enough to grab some ginger beer cordial off my brother, and that's when I decided I had to try making cupcakes flavoured with ginger beer.

I had no idea how to go about this, I didn't like the idea of having to add so much liquid to a cake mixture. But I just went ahead with it, because I had so much ginger beer in my fridge. I'm so glad that I did because these moist, golden cupcakes are delish!

The flavour of the ginger beer gets quite diluted in the cake mixture, so if you can get your hands on the ginger beer cordial to help boost that, then I would really encourage it. These went a lovely golden brown in the oven and you could really smell the ginger beer in the cakes. I had to add a little bit of ground ginger to the batter to add a little extra gingery-ness, because I love my ginger. It's funny since I never used to like ginger as a child, only knowing it as that unpleasant tasting chunky thing that you might be unlucky enough to bite into while eating your Mum's stir fry. No one ever used to tell me it came in so many deliciously sweet forms!

Ginger Beer Cupcakes
(Yield: Approx 20 cupcakes)
For the cupcakes:
1 cup tightly packed brown sugar
125g unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarb soda
3/4 cup ginger beer
2 tbsp ginger beer cordial (if unavailable, substitute with 1/4 cup ginger beer)
1/2 tsp ground ginger

For the icing:
375g (2 cups) icing sugar
140g butter (salted or unsalted), softened slightly
2 tsp ginger beer cordial (or 2 tsp ginger beer)
1 tbsp glace ginger, finely chopped
Optional: Plastic straws, chopped short

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Cream sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, and beat well with an electric mixer until combined.

Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and ginger) into a separate bowl and mix together. Combine ginger beer and ginger beer cordial in another small bowl.

Alternating between adding the ginger beer mixture and the flour mixture, gradually fold the ingredients into the butter-egg-sugar bowl. The mixture should be pale and fluffy and as runny as a regular cake batter.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3-3/4 full and then bake in the oven for 18-20 mins, or until cooked through and golden brown on top, rotating tray halfway to ensure they bake evenly. Remove from the oven and carefully remove cupcakes from tray. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Beat butter with an electric mixer on high speed until it is light and fluffy. Fold in the sifted icing sugar gradually and then stir in the ginger beer cordial. Adjust amount of cordial and amount of icing sugar until it reaches a good consistency for piping.

Pipe icing over the top of cupcakes once they are cooled. Sprinkle glace ginger over the top of the icing and then stick a small straw into each cupcake.

Can be stored for several days in an air-tight container.

I only wish I could have gotten some of those cute bendy straws to use instead of boring straight ones! Everyone I gave a cupcake to asked me if there was something that they could suck up through the straw, expecting some sort of crazy ginger beer capsule in the middle. Others wished that the straw was edible. Sheesh I didn't realise expectations were so high!