Friday, March 16, 2012

"Irish Car Bomb" Cupcakes


These "Irish Car Bomb" cupcakes are Guinness chocolate stout cupcakes filled with a Jameson whiskey ganache topped with a Bailey's Irish Cream frosting. They were in one word: DELISH! :) I made them last night and brought them to my coworkers and they were definitely a hit. I found these cupcakes online when looking for a tasty treat to bring to work. I was tired of making cake pops for every holiday so I thought I'd do a simple cupcake this time around. But of course, I can never just do something "simple." I found a recipe that included a ganache filling--something that I don't usually do when making cupcakes. I felt a little inspired last night, so I decided to go for it. The original recipe can be found here on I Sing in the Kitchen's blog, I added a couple twists but pretty much followed the recipe for the most part.

I was super excited to make these cupcakes and I was planning on doing a step by step photo tutorial since I had time and wasn't rushed for once. Of course I left my memory card in my work laptop--which was at work. So unfortunately I wasn't able to take hi-res pictures of the steps. I'll still include the pictures I took on my iPhone, but pardon the resolution.


Ingredients

Guinness Stout Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup Guinness (Feel free to substitute some other type of stout)
1 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Jameson Whiskey Ganache Filling
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
2 ounces bittersweet dark chocolate (I used 76% cacao dark chocolate from Trader Joes)
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 to 2 tablespoons Jameson whiskey (or your favorite Irish whiskey)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting
8 oz cream cheese, softened
4oz unsalted butter, softened
5 cups powdered sugar (cut back or add more depending on how much Bailey's you add)
4-6 tablespoons of Bailey’s Irish Cream (I only had the small 50 ml sample bottle of Bailey's on hand so I had to cut back on some of my powdered sugar)


Preparation

Cupcakes
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 cupcake tins with liners.
2. Bring 1 cup Guinness and 1 cup butter to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. (Use at least a medium sized saucepan as my small one got too hot and overflowed--a mess let me tell you.)
3. Take the mixture off the heat and add the cocoa powder and chocolate chips and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
4. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt together in large bowl.
5. Using a stand mixer, beat eggs and then add sour cream in another large bowl and mix well.
6. Add Guinness-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and mix in mixer to combine--don't overmix.
7. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.
8. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way (a tip from the original recipe was to use a two cup measuring cup for this task, it worked beautifully).
9. Bake cake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. This took me exactly 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely before coring for filling. (They smell SOOO good coming out of the oven! I almost wanted to stop and just eat them plain... almost. Haha)




Ganache
1. Heat the cream until simmering and then add in the chocolate chips and dark chocolate. Stir rapidly until smooth while on the heat.
2. Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined.
3. Take the ganache off the heat and let it cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (I put mine in the fridge, but make sure to stir it every 10 minutes).
3. Meanwhile, use a 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer (the original blogger used a large round piping tip and I did the same, it worked perfectly) to cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom, so aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon will help you get the center out (I used one of those plastic tools that you use for dipping things into chocolate with and it worked great). Either toss the scraps (gasp) or eat them while you finish up the cupcakes. I decided to make cake balls with the left over cupcake scraps and left over ganache. They were amazing--almost worthy of doing a separate post.




4. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top. (The piping bag really does work wonders and saves a lot of time. If you don't have a piping bag, I'm sure a plastic freezer bag with one of the corners cut would work fine.) 


Frosting
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer mix the room temperature cream cheese and butter on low to medium low speed until well incorporated.
2. Slowly add confectioners’ sugar and beat until light and fluffy on medium speed.
3. Drizzle in the Bailey’s, depending on how prominent you want the Irish cream flavoring to be. Mix until completely incorporated.
4. Use a piping bag with tip of your choice (I used Wilton's tip 2D with coupler and disposable piping bag) and frost the cupcakes. Sprinkle with festive sprinkles or decorate to your liking.

OH and if you like the cupcake wrappers, I found them online at the following website and printed them out and wrapped them after frosting and decorating (way less messy if you do it AFTER you frost).

Enjoy!






UPDATE -- Here are some pictures of the inside of the cupcake. :)





2 comments:

What's cooking @ Kavita's kitchen? said...

Nice blog with beautiful pictures. An award is awaiting you at my blog http://www.krishnankavita.blogspot.com. Head straight to my home page to collect your award!

See Dani Bake. said...

Thanks Kativa! Of course I accept the award! I just commented on your post. I'm glad you enjoy the pictures. :)

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