Boozy Irish cupcakes

*Note: I meant to publish this last weekend (clearly), but lab work and an unexpected interview out to California pushed back my timing. Sorry for the delay!

With St. Paddy's coming up this weekend, the internets have been abound with recipes for combining Irish booze and chocolate. One particular recipe caught my eye-- irish car bomb cupcakes. I'm personally not a huge fan of the Irish car bomb as a drink, which consists of a shot of Baileys dropped (or poured, for you more civilized folk) into a pint of Guinness, followed by rapid chugging before the dairy in the Baileys curdles. I have met people that love this drink and those that find it boorish and messy-- personally I don't care how many of these you have near me, I just can't get over the idea of drinking something that's curdling as I drink it. I suppose if I was drunk enough to not be thinking about the curdling..but that's another story.

These cupcakes though...now these I think will satisfy anyone's qualms regarding Irish booze mixed together.  They're genius really, sticking the Guinness in the cupcake, some whiskey in the ganache filling, and then Baileys in the frosting (this stuff was so good I'm plotting other ways to incorporate it into other desserts).

When I hit up Wine and Cheese Cask (an awesome liquor and cheese store around the corner from me), and they told me I could buy Guinness by the can, that I could buy a small nip of Jameson, and a nice little bottle of Baileys (as I bought them I felt the need to explain to the salesperson, "I'm baking, not drinking tonight.."), I knew it was a sign I had to try making them.

These are a little more ambitious than my usual recipes-- they do involve multiple parts (cupcake, ganache, frosting) and construction (cutting out the middles of the cupcakes and filling them), but I think you'll find them worth your while! I certainly did :)

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes (or Boozy Irish Cupcakes)
(makes 2 dozen normal size cupcakes, 12 huge cupcakes)

adapted from Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes, Smitten Kitchen  

For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 c stout (such as Guinness)
1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
2 c all purpose flour
2 c sugar*
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2/3 c sour cream (Greek yogurt is also fine)

Ganache Filling
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
2/3 c heavy cream
1 to 2 tsp Irish whiskey (optional)

Baileys Frosting
1/2-1 c confections sugar**
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperatue
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys (or milk, or heavy cream, or a combination thereof)

Make the cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
3. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Make a hole in the middle (again, my 1-bowl cheat method) and add eggs and sour cream. Gently beat the eggs with the sour cream together.
4. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and mix gently to combine. Begin gently mixing in the dry ingredients. Batter will be slightly shiny and very greasy.***
5. Divide batter among cupcakes, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.

Make the filling:

Transfer chocolate to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes).

Meanwhile, using a sharp knife, cut the centers out of your cooled cupcakes (my holes measured slightly larger than a quarter). You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip (or use a small teaspoon) and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.****

Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
[Great trick from Smitten Kitchen: "This is a fantastic trick I picked up while working on the cupcakes article for Martha Stewart Living; the test kitchen chefs had found that when they added the sugar slowly, quick buttercream frostings got less grainy, and tended to require less sugar to thicken them up."]
When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys (or milk) and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

Frost and decorate the cupcakes. By the way, if anyone has any cupcake frosting tips please pass them along! Mine didn't look as pretty as I hoped =/

Happy (very BELATED in the case of this entry) St. Paddy's!

* This is what happens when you start baking at 11p and forget this critical ingredient:

Crumbly bitter things that have you wondering if the ganache and frosting are to make up the sweetness...until you realize oh, you forgot the sugar.

** Using the frosting trick above, I only needed 1/2c to get the frosting to the sweetness I desired. You may want more :)

*** I found the batter to be so greasy that I didn't need cupcake liners for a traditional nonstick cupcake pan. They just popped right out!

**** I found it optimal to fill the ganache to just below the surface of the cupcake. If you overfill the ganache, then when you start to frost the cupcakes the icing mixes with the excess ganache, and you get a swirly mess (see below)