What's a Manual?

Happy 13th Annual Manual Billy, Chris, Brian & Adam!

My husband Billy and some of his closest college friends from Auburn have been getting together for a "Man Trip" every summer. If I mention that Billy is out of town on the Manual the response is always, "What's a Manual?" Then I go into my explanation that it's an Annual Man Trip, hence Manual. Their group number has fluctuated throughout the years, but these 4 guys have been going strong for...you guessed it, 13 years!! Impressive right? I must say I am extremely envious of their tradition and keep telling my girlfriends we need to do it too!! Billy's friends all live in different states and they usually try to rotate the trip locations and keep it close to one of them so they don't always have to travel very far. This year Brian is renting a lake house in Alabama on Lake Martin, so that is where they are headed. 

The Manual usually consists of a fair amount of cerveza drinking, so in honor of the Manual I decided I would make beer shaped cake pops out of Chocolate Guinness cake with Bailey's Cream cheese frosting. I actually got several uses out of this recipe. I made a couple of cupcakes for Billy just because, and then in a 9" round pan I baked the rest of the batter. I used half the cake for the Manual cake pops and froze the other half of the cake for a future use.  

Here's the recipe I followed courtesy of Dave Lieberman on the Foodnetwork.com: 

• Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups all-purposeflour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • Pinch fine salt
  • 1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness)
  • 1 stick butter, melted
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 3 large eggs
  • 3/4 cup sour cream
  • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened at room temperature
  • 3/4 to 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 (1-pound) box confectioners' sugar

  Directions

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

  In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.

  In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, 1 at time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

  

  This isn't my picture but my cupcakes were almost identical, no joke.  

  Lightly grease 24 muffin tins. Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out.

  To make the icing:

  In a medium bowl with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese on medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the heavy cream. On low speed, slowly mix in the confectioners' sugar until incorporated and smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. Icing can be made several hours ahead and kept covered and chilled. Top each cupcake with a heap of frosting and dust with cocoa.

The cupcakes were pretty delicious by the way. Oh yes, my cake pops! I created a little mug and pilsner glass. I had a difficult time writing 'Beer' on the mugs though. I used one of those food markers which supposedly says you can write on just about anything. I'm not convinced you can write on chocolate. I used peanut butter chocolate melts for the mug/glass and white chocolate for the overflowing foam.  On the mugs I used a Cheerrio for the handle.