Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Bailey's Frosting

Jacqueline's Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

I found this recipe via a friend of a friend of a friend's blog. I honestly don't even know this woman, nor could I find her blog again! That's what it's like to "mine" blog sites. So, I'm providing a few recipes. I used the first one from FoodNetwork:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chocolate-stout-and-irish-cream-liqueur-cupcakes-recipe/index.html

This recipe is from Cupcakes Wars, and if you haven't watch an episode, I highly recommend it. They come up with some interesting combinations, and it's a very competitive business this baking of cupcakes. ;-)
http://theculinarychronicles.com/2011/03/09/chocolate-stout-cupcakes-with-irish-cream-buttercream-slainte/

Read on for our recipe review...



This cooking blog is authored by a young woman who was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and her family were Vietnamese refugees! If this ain't the American Dream I don't know what is?! I haven't spent a lot of time mining her recipes but there is lots of time for that.

The recipes, or any recipe if you google "stout cupcakes," will lead you to a variant of these recipes. Some use 12 ounces of stout, some use a cup and your batter will be on the runny-side. I used the larger amount since the can was 16 ounces and I didn't want to drink the rest. I tried stout once in college when my friend, Jim, brought some over. I was a good sport and tried it, but I have always remembered never to order it at a brew pub. Maybe someday I will drink it again when I finally make it to Ireland.

I also learned from my resident malt beverage expert, Nancy, that the little thing that rattles in the can is OK, and not to worry. It's some sort of nitrogen bubble that bursts upon opening the can and provides the fresh, just pulled carbonation. Love these brewing chemistry geeks!

The frosting, well, it was creamy and luscious. I now use the whisk attachment for frosting and probably will never use the paddle attachment again. It makes THAT much of a difference IMO. And, I have the rave reviews to back up my new frosting discovery.

Slán go fóill! Ellen

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Jacqueline, here...So, after Ellen brought one of these delightfully dense, moist, bittersweet cupcakes with impossibly fluffy frosting to work for me to try, I decided I had to try my hand at these. I had the perfect opportunity a couple weekends ago. We were having a BBQ & celebrating my husband's graduation, so I wanted to make something festive - but not too girly. These cupcakes were perfect - they're about as manly as a cupcake gets. I think they kind of look like little frosty mugs of Guinness with lots of frothy head. Here's what my "manly" cupcakes looked like:

My frosting wasn't *quite* as fluffy as Ellen's, and another adventure in substitution may be to blame. Do you see a pattern in my baking?

I was about halfway through this recipe (which uses all but 2 oz of a large can of Guinness - each cupcake had 1/2 oz, plus the Irish cream in the frosting - they were like little Irish car bombs!) when I realized, wait, there's no booze in this frosting!! This isn't Ellen's fluffy Irish cream frosting! So I did some frantic searching through The Food Network's web site and switched over to the frosting portion of this recipe. And I swapped out one stick of butter for 4 oz cream cheese, just because. I know, it's not Bailey's in the picture but I figured for a savings of $12, Carolan's was worth a shot. Hehe.

Anyway, they turned out great and disappeared very quickly. Out of 24, I only ate 2 - that's amazing for me!