"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. :)

Chocolate Raspberry Brownies with Fresh Raspberry Mousse

I was hanging out with my mom (Hi mom!) and I told her I wanted to bake something with her so I could feature her as a guest chef. :) So we were thinking of something to bake and she mentioned she had a lot of raspberries. I LOVE dark chocolate raspberry truffles from See's Candies--to die for--so I figured we could do something with raspberries and dark chocolate. We both aren't big cupcake or cake fans so we decided to go with brownies. We did a Google search and found this recipe which we slightly adapted to fit our ingredients on hand. We made a couple heart shaped brownies as well as some in a 8x8 pan to be cut into squares. We were at my mom's house so we used her heart shaped pans, not sure where she got them from. I have 4 of the Wilton 4-Inch Heart Springform Pans back at my house that I've used for a similar recipe in the past. I took this pan of brownies to the office and they loved them. :) I personally think that next time I will make the brownies more chocolatey--because let's face it, who can have TOO much chocolate??

Ingredients

Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

- 1 cup chocolate chips or chunks (we used Ghiradelli dark chocolate (60% cocoa) chunks but you could use semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks as well, just depends on your chocolate preference)

- 1 1/4 cups all-purposeflour

- 1/2 teaspoonbaking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 cup granulatedsugar

- 1/3 cup (2/3stick) butter, softened (since this was short notice, we had to cheat and use the microwave to soften the butter--just don't melt it completely.)

- 1 teaspoon vanillaextract

- 2 large eggs

- 1/3 cup freshraspberries, mashed (I prepped the raspberries ahead of time and ended up having to drain some of the juice before I added them to the mixture.)

Raspberry Mousse

- 1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

- 3/4 cup powderedsugar

- 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips or chopped chocolate chunks (we happened to have semi-sweet mini chocolate chips on hand, or else we could have chopped up the chunks we used for the brownie mix)

- 1/2 teaspoonvanilla extract

- 1/4 cup freshraspberries, mashed, drained

- 1/3 cup heavy whippingcream

 
Preparation 

Chocolate Raspberry Brownies 

1) Preheat oven to 350º F. Grease your baking pans very well. (The entire batter will fit in a 9 inch square pan, or you could split it up into 4 heart shaped pans and an 8x8 pan like me and my mom decided to do. It's important to make sure your pans are well greased so you do not have trouble getting the brownies out.)

Mom says: "We lined our 8x8 pan with foil so it would be easier to remove from the pan and cut into squares. Just make sure to grease your foil really well."

2) Rinse and drain your fresh raspberries.

3) Mash the raspberries using a potato masher or something similar.










4) Microwave 1 cup chunks in small, uncovered, microwave-safebowl on high (100%) power for 30 seconds. Stir. Microwave at additional 10- to 15-secondintervals, stir until smooth; cool to room temperature. 
Mom says: "You have to heat it in no more than 30 second intervals and stir in between to melt the chocolate without overcooking it. It'll get grainy if you overcook it."



5. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl.

6. Beatgranulated sugar, butter and vanilla extract with your stand mixer or a hand mixer in a medium mixing bowl until creamy.Add the eggs. Beat the mixture until light and fluffy.

Mom says: "Break the eggs in a separate bowl just in case you happen to get a bad egg so you won't mess up your entire batter." 

7. Next beat in melted chocolate. (Depending on how fast you are at getting your ingredients together you might have to stick it in the microwave again for 10 seconds to make sure it is still melted.)

8. Stir in flourmixture little by little until blended.










9. Stir in mashed raspberries. (I drained the mashed raspberries at this time since some of the juice was collecting.)




















10. Spread into prepared bakingpan. (I used a rubber spatula and the back of a spoon to spread the batter as it is too thick and sticky to just pour. This was probably the most difficult part of the whole process.)

11. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted incenter comes out slightly sticky. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. (Since we used the heart pans as well as the 8x8 we only baked for about 15 minutes and they were completely baked. And honestly we were too eager to eat these bad boys that we didn't let them cool completely before putting on the mousse. We put them on wire racks for like 15 minutes to cool.)

Raspberry Mousse

1. Beat whipping cream in stand mixer or with hand mixer in a small mixing bowl until stiff peaks form. Transfer whipped cream to another clean bowl and set aside.

 <-- my mom whipping the cream :)




















2. Beatcream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract in stand mixer (we didn't bother to wash after whipping the cream) or using the hand mixer in a separate mixing bowl until creamy. 

3. Fold in mashed raspberries and choppedchocolate morsels.

4. Fold whipped creaminto raspberry cream cheese mixture until blended. 

5. Spread mousse over cooledbrownie and garnish with fresh raspberries. 

6. Refrigerate for 1 hour.  (We again were not patient and only refrigerated the small heart pans for about 15 minutes again before we plated the brownies for pictures. But the 8x8 pan stayed in overnight.)

7. Run a sharp knife around the edges of the heart pans and pop out. (If using a 9 inch pan without foil lining, repeat this process. If lined with foil, no need to run a knife around the edges, simply pull the foil out of the pan and fold it down in order to cut the brownies into bars.)

Enjoy!!

Me and my mommy. :)

Mom says: "You better make sure I look good in the picture! They already know what you look like!"

Holiday Cake Pops

 














This past Christmas I felt like being an overachiever and really diversify the cookies and desserts I was bringing to my family celebrations. I figured if I wasn't making most of the food--my grandma still cooks EVERYTHING for Christmas and all of our celebrations, and its soooo good--I would step it up in terms of desserts. So I decided to make cake pops. I had been wanting to make cake pops for a while but hadn't had the time. I found a cake pop tutorial on Pinterest (did I mention that I LOVE Pinterest?? But then again, who doesn't?) and thought it would be a good time to make some Christmas themed cake pops. It looked simple enough. Here is "Decorate This" cake pop tutorial. It was really helpful to know the mistakes that most first timers make so that I could prevent it from happening to my pops. And of course making cake pops wouldn't be complete without consulting the Queen Bee of cake pops -- Bakerella. I decided to make several variations of cake pops and their recipes are below.


Ingredients

Red Velvet Cake Pops (original recipe via Bakerella)

1 box red velvet cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.) -- I used Duncan Hines
1 package of semi sweet chocolate chips -- I used Toll House
colored melting chocolates (available at Michael's in like every color)

For the white chocolate coating variation I used Ghiradelli white chocolate chips.  

Chocolate Cake Pops (original recipe via BHG)

1 box chocolate cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can triple chocolate frosting (16 oz.) -- I used Duncan Hines
1 package of semi sweet chocolate chips -- I used Toll House
colored melting chocolates (available at Michael's in like every color)

For the white chocolate coating variation I used Ghiradelli white chocolate chips.   

Tools


lollipop sticks (you can get these at Michael's)
wax paper
a couple blocks of styrofoam (I got them from Michael's but I'm sure you can find them somewhere else for cheaper)

Preparation

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix in enough frosting so that the cake holds together when squeezed. You should be able to roll a firm ball that holds its shape. I tend to add a different amount of frosting depending on what recipe I use; add slowly and test the consistency frequently. (Bakerella says that it may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but it was VERY messy and not that effective. I did the second batch with my Kitchen Aid Mixer and the paddle attachment and it worked perfect.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet with wax paper. (It will make A LOT of cake balls--about 45-50.)
4. Chill for at least 30 minutes. (Bakerella recommends several hours but I didn't really have the patience. You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Melt a small amount of chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Dip the lollipop sticks in the chocolate (about 1/2") and then place in the center of the chilled cake ball. Stick at least half-way into cake ball and make sure you don't poke all the way through! (This is where the cake pop tutorial I linked above was very helpful.)
7. Refrigerate until chocolate is firm around the lollipop stick.
8. Melt your chocolate--depending on your bowl make sure that you melt enough chocolate so that you can submerge the entire cake pop without tilting the bowl, and without hitting the bottom.
9. Dip cake pop into chocolate, so that it is completely submerged. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT: make sure to cover the chocolate around the lollipop stick! It's really important that the entire cake ball is covered with chocolate - otherwise, the cake will escape from any and every tiny hole in the chocolate. (Not pretty!)
10. Once removed from the chocolate, excess coating will start dripping off of the pop. Hold the cake pop in one hand, and gently tap your hand to help remove excess coating, turning the pop as you go so the excess will come off evenly. (Don't tap too hard or your cake pop will start falling off the stick--this happened to me a couple of times.)  
11. When you have no drips left, hold cake pop upside down for a few seconds to allow coating to dry a bit before inverting. Invert cake pop, and place in your stand to dry completely. (I put mine in the fridge again to harden up so I could decorate.)
12. Get a couple disposable plastic baggies and use one for each color of melting chocolates to decorate. Stick the baggies in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until melted. If there are a couple bumps just smooth them out by squeezing the bag a bit. Twist the bag and cut a small hole in one of the bottom corners of the baggy. Now just drizzle the colored chocolate over the pops while in the stands and put back in the fridge to harden. And--viola!