St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  

For today's festivities we will be attending a very special party and decided to make these Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes.  We made them last year for another party, and they were a big hit so we decided, why mess with success?  To make these extra special, we used green cupcake liners and green edible glitter.  

Slainte!

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Makes 20 to 24 cupcakes

For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup stout (We used Rogue Chocolate Stout)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Chocolate Whiskey Ganache Filling
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (We used Jameson's)

Bailey's Frosting
3 to 4 cups confections sugar
1/2 Cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 to 4 tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream


To Make the Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring stout and butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend.

Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.

Divide batter among cupcake liners. 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.

To Make the Ganache Filling: Chop the chocolate and transfer it 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 butter and whiskey and stir until combined.

To 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. When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys and whip it until combined.


To Fill and Frost the Cupcakes:  Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped. Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, 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 — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Next, put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.  To frost, we used a large, open, star tip and piped through a piping bag.


*Recipe from Smitten Kitchen