Guinness and Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Cheese Frosting

Sure, I made some cupcakes last night… So what?! Cupcakes are awesome! I took 5 cupcakes from the Carrot Cupcake batch to our apartment complex to say ‘thank you’ for all they do! I want to take some to my mother-in-law and my grandmother-in-law, and I might just do that! I met up with my sister, niece, and a friend at the local swap-meet for some shopping, then they came over for some Wii games and baking. We made the Guinness and Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheese Frosting, from here. A friend of mine gave me the link, and I’ve made two of the recipes from here and so far, so good! I topped my cupcakes with Pampered Chef Sweet Cinnamon Sprinkle, which added a bit of flare and a good taste and texture. If you would like to BUY some of the cinnamon sprinkles, you can buy them here! It’s definitely a recipe I’ll use again, but I learned a little something about frosting: ALWAYS MAKE MORE! I need to double or do a 1 ½ batch of frosting.

Cupcakes 

Information: 
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Makes: 20-24 cupcakes

Ingredients: 
2 C unbleached all purpose flour
½ C Dutch processed cocoa powder
¼ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 C granulated sugar
½ C light or dark brown sugar
½ C unsalted softened butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg
½ C sour cream
12 oz Guinness beer

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and butter or line with paper cups 2 12 count muffin tins.

2. In a large bowl briefly whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. Mix the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

4. Add one egg and beat until evenly mixed and fluffy. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl if necessary. Add the second egg and vanilla extract and beat again until light and fluffy.

5. Add the sour cream and beat in, then with the mixer running, slowly pour in the Guinness.

6. Slowly add the flour mixture into the batter until it is evenly mixed and there are no streaks of flour. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl to incorporate any clumps of the flour mixture.

7. Fill each cupcake liner to ½ to ¾ full.

8. Bake at 350°F on the middle rack for 20 – 25 minutes, so that a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

9. ****Make sure to rotate the pans halfway through baking. Set on a rack to cool to room temperature before frosting.

Frosting

Information: 
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Makes: Not really enough (I should have done a 1 ½ batch)

Ingredients: 
8 oz cream cheese, softened
4 oz unsalted butter, softened
2 C confectioner’s sugar
6 Tablespoons of Bailey’s Irish Cream

Directions: 
1. Mix the cream cheese, butter, and confectioner’s sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
2. Slowly drizzle in the Bailey’s until completely incorporated into the frosting.

Carrot Cupcakes with Rum Cream Cheese Frosting

It isn't a baking experience in my kitchen without something going absurdly wrong... Tonight: I made the mistake of putting carrot peels and burnt coconut down the garbage disposal. That was a "fun" 45 minutes of cleaning. Ick!! Overall, I think the recipe went well. I found the recipe here, which is the same blog as the Guinness & Chocolate Cupcake with Bailey's Irish Cream Cheese Frosting is from (that recipe has not been made yet).

Cupcakes

Information:

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 60 minutes

Makes: 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

¾ pound carrots, peeled and finely grated
8 oz crushed pineapple, drained
4 large eggs

½ C brown sugar
¾ C granulated sugar

½ C unsalted butter, melted and cooled
½ C canola oil
2 C unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
⅛ tsp allspice

Directions:

1.   Preheat the oven to 350°.

2.   Mix the carrots and pineapple in a large bowl and set aside; Mix dry flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice in a large bowl and set aside.

3.   Mix eggs and both sugars.

4.   Melt the butter (on stove top or in microwave for 2 minutes at 30-second intervals).

5.   Drizzle the butter and oil into the egg/sugar mixture.

6.   Slowly mix in the flour mixture with the egg/sugar mixture.

7.   Slowly add the carrot/pineapple mixture with the batter.

8.   Pour (or spoon) batter into 24 cupcake papers to ½ or ¾ full.

9.   Bake for 27 minutes.

10. Let the cupcakes cool before frosting.

I made a double batch of frosting so I could be generous on the cupcakes

Frosting

Information:

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Makes: a lot

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese
8 oz unsalted butter
5 C powdered sugar, sifted
6 tbsp dark rum (use 3-4 tbsp for “a hint of rum” taste)

Directions:

1.   Let the cream cheese come to room temperature.

2.   Whip the cream cheese with 2 cups of the sugar.

3.   Melt the butter on the stove. When bubbles start to form, pour the hot butter into a small, ice-cold bowl sitting in another bowl with ice under the smaller bowl.

4.   Drizzle the cooler butter into the cheese/sugar mixture and blend.

5.   Mix in the remaining sugar.

6.   Mix in the rum.

7.   Whip the mixture until it’s light and fluffy.

Topping

Information:

Prep Time: 0 minutes

Total Time: 5-10 minutes

Makes: 1 lb of toasted coconut (way more than needed, but the rest can be frozen for a later use)

Ingredients:

1 lb package of sweetened, shredded coconut

Directions:

1.   Preheat the oven to 350°.

2.   Lay out coconut on a metal pan.

3.   Cook coconut for 5-10 minutes, stirring the coconut, until the edges are brown.

Frost the cupcakes and top with coconut to your liking.

I think I’ll deliver these cupcakes to the management of our apartment complex to thank them for everything they do. Also, I want to take some to my husband’s grandma because we haven’t seen her in a while, and I absolutely love her! She’s a wonderful woman, and I know she will appreciate homemade carrot cake cupcakes!

New Cupcake Recipe

A friend of mine recently made cupcakes that his entire family was talking about. They made me curious. I requested the recipe, and he said he found it at a blog here. My goal was to work all the recipes I already have and then start on new ones, but I really can't pass this one up. Especially since my husband's love of beer and the fact that we have most of the ingredients in our fridge already!

Saturday, I'm going shopping for accessories to wear to my best friend's wedding, and then I'm having two friends over to bake these cupcakes. One friend knows about the recipe, the other doesn't. It should be a fun time, and I'll let you know how the cupcakes come out!

I will not copying and pasting the recipe from this blog. I will be rewriting the directions as to how the recipe was done in my own kitchen. I can't wait!

Next week, I will be attending a "Girls Night Out" for my best friend's bachelorette party, and it's all cupcake and wine-tasting based! I'll make sure to take a ton of pictures and maybe even collect some recipes!

Fudge Marble Cupcakes

A recipe for 12 regular cupcakes. Sounds simple right? I'm sure it is, I wouldn't know. I tripled the recipe for 36 cupcakes and somehow only ended up with 32. This is just the start of my problems with this recipe. My mixer can handle a triple batch of cupcakes, no sweat. The question is: Can the baker? Next time, I think I'll stick to a cake for the Birthday Club. Oy. As delicious as these cupcakes sound, I hope they come out alright. As of right now, the cupcakes are done cooling, and I am deciding what to do for the topping. (You'll see why later on.) This recipe comes from the book "Cupcakes!" by Elinor Klivans, which can be bought here. So, here's the recipe:

The single batch is first, the triple batch is in parenthesis.

Cupcakes

Information:

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Makes: 12 regular sized cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 ¼ (3 ¾) cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ (1 ½) tsp baking powder 

¼ (¾) tsp baking soda

¼ (¾) tsp salt

1 (3) large egg**

1 (1) large egg yolk**

1 (3) cup sugar

½ (1 ½) cup canola or corn oil

1 (3) tsp vanilla extract

½ (1 ½) cup sour cream

**For a double batch, you double everything except the eggs. For a double batch, you do 3 large eggs only. Well, for a triple batch (that would be a single and a double batch put together), I did 3 large eggs and 1 egg yolk.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mix the egg, yolk, and sugar on medium speed until the mix is thick and cream-colored, roughly two minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl if necessary. On a low speed, mix in the oil and vanilla until blended. Continue mixing and add the sour cream until completely blended. Mix in the flour mixture until the batter is smooth.

4. Spoon out ¾ (2 ¼) cup batter and set it aside.

5. Measure ½ (1 ½) cup fudge glaze and gently add it to the batter without mixing the two.

6. Using a spoon, fill each cupcake liner with about 3 tbs of the batter and fudge, without mixing the batter.

7. Using the left-over plain batter, put about 1 tbs of batter on the top of each battered cup, to about ½ inch below the top of the liner.

8. Bake the cupcakes for about 23 minutes, or until a toothpick can be inserted in the cupcake and come out clean.

9. Let the cupcakes cool and then frost.

(† - See note below)  

The single batch is first, the 1 ½ batch is in parenthesis.

Fudge Glaze

Information:

Prep Time: less than 5 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Makes: two cups glaze **

**The recipe calls for 1 cup of fudge glaze, and since I have made a triple batch of cupcakes, I need 3 cups of fudge glaze, hence the 1 ½ batch of fudge.

Ingredients:

1 (1 ½) cup heavy cream

2 (3) tbs unsalted butter, cut into two (three) pieces

3 (4 ½) tbs light corn syrup

9 (13 ½) oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ (¾) tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, butter, and corn syrup on low heat. Small bubbles will form, but do not let the mixture boil.
2. Right before the boiling point, remove the pan from the flame and add the vanilla and chocolate chips. Let the mixture sit for 30 seconds to melt the chocolate. Whisk the mixture to completely combine the cream base and chocolate.

(† - Note below ;-) ) This is where the recipe gets tricky… The glaze is not thick enough to frost the cupcakes with, so I am at an impasse. I do not know what to do. Should I just glaze them, or should I whip up some whipped cream and mix in the chocolate glaze and have chocolate whipped frosting? I wasn’t sure what to do, so I Googled “rich and creamy frosting” and what came up? “Butter cream frosting”. So I made a batch of butter cream frosting and heated up the now cool glaze (I had stuck it in the fridge to harden it a bit) and added it to the frosting. This heated up the frosting, so I put in the fridge to cool down, then I used my Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator to decorate the cupcakes, then put them in the fridge. I found the recipe for the butter cream frosting here.

Butter Cream Frosting:

Information:

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Makes: 2 ½ cups

Ingredients:

½ cup butter, softened

⅛ teaspoon salt

4 cups confectioners' sugar

2 egg yolk, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbs milk (I used non-fat)

Directions:
1. Mix the butter and salt until the butter is creamy.
2. Alternating, add the sugar, vanilla, eggs, and milk. (I did: 1C sugar, vanilla, 1C sugar, eggs, 1 C sugar, milk, 1C sugar)
3. Whip until light and airy.

Spectacular Spectacular!

No words in the vernacular/Can describe this great event/You'll be dumb with wonderment/Returns are fixed at 10%/You must agree that's excellent

The cupcake/brownie/ice cream cone amazement is wonderful! Or so I've heard. I have yet to taste one, as I am not a fan of the cone. I am glad that they were a job well-tasty, and my husband will be taking the five left to work to share with his co-workers.

Tomorrow, after a very long day that includes church and Disneyland, I will be making a double batch of Fudge Marble Cupcakes for the Birthday Club at my work! That will be four recipes in just as many days!!

In other news, my best friend (who lives four states away, boooooo) has decided I am the definition of frustrating, and has taken it upon herself to make her own cupcakes to satisfy her sweet tooth, and those of her husband and son. She took the time to decorate a cupcake or three in my honor, and snapped a quick photo. Her pages can be found here, here, here, and here.