One secret ingredient – 2 recipes

A little bit of Guinness turns out to be a winning addition to both some black velvet cupcakes and an apple, guinness and cheese soda bread.

Black velvet cupcakes

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Put muffin cases in a muffin tin. This recipe makes about 8 large cupcakes. Put 100g softened butter (make sure its really soft because you combine all the ingredients in one go), 175g light brown soft sugar, 1 egg, 100g self-raising flour, 50g ground almonds, 5 tbsp cocoa and 150ml Guinness in a mixing bowl. Beat together until lump-free. Add 1 big milkybar, broken into chunks (optional). Divide between the tins then bake for 20-25 mins until risen and a skewer poked in comes out clean. Cool for 15 mins, then remove from tins and cool completely. Once cool, you can drizzle over a little bit of icing if you like.

Apple, Guinness & Cheese Soda Bread (from River Cottage)

1. Preheat the oven to 230°C/gas mark 8. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

2. In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine 250g strong white bread flour, 200g wholemeal flour, 50g oats, a large pinch of salt and 20g baking powder. Add 100g roughly chopped dessert apple and 50g of grated cheddar cheese.

3. Combine 100ml sunflower or rapeseed oil and 250ml Guinness and pour into the dry ingredients. The next stage is the most important part of making good soda bread: the less you handle the mixture, the lighter and tastier the loaf will be. ‘Feather’ your hand out like a giant fork and gently combine the ingredients. This should take no more than a minute and the mixture should only just be combined.

4. Put plenty of flour on your work surface and tip your mixture out on to it. Shape the dough into a round (don’t knead it, just pat it into shape). Transfer it to the baking sheet and top with the remaining cheese. Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown and well risen.