Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes


On St. Patty's Day morn, my friends Irish stout, Jameson, and Baileys came together for a little party.


Ingredients
(Receipe from Brown Eyed Baker)
  • Cupcakes
    •  1 cup Irish stout
    • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
    • ¾ cup cocoa powder
    • 2 cups all purpose flour
    • 2 cups sugar
    • 1½ teaspoons baking soda
    • ¾ teaspoon salt
    • 2 eggs
    • ⅔ cup sour cream
  • Filling
    •  8 oz chocolate chips
    • ⅔ cup cream
    • 2 tablespoons butter
    • 1 tablespoon Irish whiskey
  • Frosting (NOTE: if you're not into sky high frosting, half the recipe will do)
    • 2 cups (4 sticks) butter, room temperature
    • 5 cups powdered sugar
    • 6 tablespoons Baileys
  • Green sanding sugar and shamrocks (optional but fun)
Method

Begin by melting two sticks of butter in a sauce pan.

Add a cup of beer.  Commence drinking the remaining beer left in the bottle.  Ignore clock in previous photo: it's 5:00 somewhere.

Whisk the beer and butter together and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

Slowly add in the cocoa powder, whisking completely smooth.

When combined, remove from heat and set aside to cool.  If you're in the habit of taste testing, skip it.  There is nothing appetizing about the combination of butter, beer, and cocoa.  The good stuff is yet to come.

Measure out the dry ingredients and set aside.

Whisk the eggs and sour cream together.

Add the chocolate mixture.  Hold off on the taste testing until the next step.

Beat in the dry ingredients in a few batches, mixing as slowly as possible until just combined.

Now it's safe to taste test!

Preheat oven to 350°.  Line cupcake pans and divide the batter.

Bake 15-20 minutes, until they pass the toothpick test.  Leave them to cool for a little bit.

Melt the chocolate and cream together, on stove top or in microwave.

Blend in the Jameson and butter.  Remove from heat.  Taste to see if there's enough Jameson, and let it cool before pipping it into the cupcakes.  It will be cool enough by the time the frosting is ready.

Make the frosting by whipping the butter for five minutes until quite fluffy.  Add the sugar one cup at a time until blended.  Follow up with the Baileys (6 tablespoons = one mini bottle) and mix for a few more minutes.

And now finally, it's assembly time.  Cut a small circle into the top of each cupcake, going about halfway down.  What to do with the cupcake holes?  Drown them in the leftover filling and frosting.

Pipe in the Jameson filling.  It's actually quite easy to drizzle it in with a spoon if you don't have the fancy pipping/frosting doohickey.

Frost cupcakes with your desired amount of frosting.  I prefer a 1:1 ratio of cake and frosting, but I won't judge you if you go higher or lower.

Sprinkle with sugar and shamrocks.

And share with friends!