Milk stout cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 180°C and set aside a 12-cup cupcake tray with liners.

In a saucepan, heat the milk stout and butter on low heat until the butter has melted.
Whisk in the sugar and cocoa powder, and leave it to cool slightly.
Beat the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla together and pour into the stout mixture.
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Slowly pour the stout mixture into the flour bowl, stirring constantly.
Transfer the batter to a jug and pour some into each cupcake liner. (The liners should be about 80% full, as the cake doesn’t rise all that much.)
Bake for about 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Leave to cool.
Once your cupcakes have cooled (about an hour), use a piping bag and a 10mm star tip to pipe the caramel icing on top.
Drizzle with some leftover caramel sauce for decoration.

Caramel icing:

Cream the butter with an electric mixer and slowly add two cups of icing sugar.
Add the caramel sauce (store-bough or see recipe, below) and the milk, mixing throughout.
Add the rest of the icing sugar, adding more milk if the icing is too thick. Continue mixing with the electric mixer until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined.

Caramel sauce:

Combine the sugar and the water in a heavy-bottomed pan on low heat, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved.
Turn the heat up to medium low and heat until the sauce starts turning a caramel colour.
Immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour in the cream. The sauce will bubble furiously for a few seconds.
Stir in the butter and vanilla and set aside to cool for at least an hour.

Recipe reprinted with permission of Diné Bennett.