Chocolate Stout and Whiskey Cupcakes
This recipe has been floating around the internet for a while, and every Saint Patrick’s Day I say I’m going to try it out, and I never do. But this year was my year - I finally made the delicious cuppin’ cakes and they were wildly popular.
Ingredients & Method (adapted from the Smitten Kitchen):
For the cupcakes:
- 1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup unsweetened dutch cocoa powder
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 cup sour cream
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup 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 3/4 teaspoon 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, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. 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.
Ganache Filling:
- 8 oz bittersweet chocolate
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 1 to 2 teaspoons Irish Whiskey (optional)
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. Add the butter and whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.
Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. Or you can really just use a knife and free-form… that’s what I did, and they came out fine. 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. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.
Bailey’s (or O’Mara’s) Frosting:
- 3 to 4 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 1 stick butter, room temperature
- 3 to 4 tablespoons Bailey’s (or any fake Bailey’s you can find for cheaper, like O’Mara’s)
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 (or milk) and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.
I don’t have a piping bag, so I just put the frosting in a Ziploc and snipped a teeny hole in one corner. I decorated the cuppin’ cakes with shamrocks and then sprinkled green sprinkles on to be extra festive.
Some of them definitely look more shamrock-y than the others, but they’re all delicious!
(meg)
