This is birthday cupcake recipe #1. I was feeling kind of
meh about what to make for my birthday this year and then I found
this recipe over on Serious Eats and I knew it was The One.
Recipe:
Cake
1 cup Stout (Guinness)
1 cup Butter
3/4 cup Cocoa Powder
2 cups Flour
2 cups Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda
3/4 teaspoon Salt
2 Eggs
2/3 cup Sour Cream
Pre-heat oven to 350°. Place cupcake papers in a cupcake/muffin tin. This recipe makes about 24 cupcakes.
In a medium saucepan, melt butter and add Guinness. Bring to a simmer and whisk in cocoa powder, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
In a mixing bowl, cream together eggs and sour cream. Add chocolate stout mixture. On slow speed, gradually mix in the dry ingredients.
Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full (these don't rise too much). Bake until tester comes out clean, about 20-22 minutes. Cool completely.
Filling
8 ounces Bittersweet Chocolate (60-70% cocoa)
2 tablespoons Butter
1/3 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1/3 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
1 tablespoon Irish Whiskey (Jameson, Bushmills, etc.)
Break chocolate into chunks and place in a heat proof bowl. Add butter. Heat cream to a simmer and pour over butter and chocolate. Let sit for a minute or so, until the cream melts the chocolate (I made the filling while the cupcakes were baking, so I set the bowl on the oven and this helped melt the chocolate). Stir until smooth. Add the Irish cream and whiskey and stir until smooth.
Chill the filling until it is firm, but still workable. It's going into the cupcakes, so you don't want it to be liquid. I found that kind of a cream cheese firmness was good. And if it's too firm, let it sit for a few minutes.
Frosting
1 stick Butter, softened
3-4 cups Powdered Sugar
3-4 tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream
Beat butter until fluffy. Gradually add about 2 cups of the sugar. Add some of the Bailey's and beat well. Add remaining sugar and Bailey's until the frosting is a good consistency for spreading.
Okay, now that all the components are ready, it's time to assemble the cupcakes:
Make a space for the filling in the cupcakes. I used a small, sharp knife to cut a circle out of the top, and bore a hole in the cake. Only go about 2/3 of the way down.
Fill the cupcakes. I used a spoon to scoop out filling and then used a knife to press a glob of filling in, and then make it smooth and level with the top of the cupcake (just like spackling!). You could also use a pastry bag to pipe filling into the cupcakes.
Frost the cupcakes!
So cute! And here's a cross section:
The cake is good, not super intense, but a really good chocolate cake, and then the filling is fudgy and delicious, and the icing is buttery and Irish creamy. They're super good together and this is maybe my favorite cupcake. Certainly the best cupcake I've made.
Happy birthday to me.
And overall it wasn't a difficult recipe. There's a lot of steps, but I was expecting to struggle with carving the hole out of the cake and filling it, but it went together pretty quickly, and hassle free.
Oh, and I should add that you don't really taste the alcohol in the cake, filling, or frosting. I mean, you
taste it, but I don't think you could get drunk off the cupcakes.
