{Cupcake Monday} Throwback: Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

I've probably re-posted about these delicious confections a few times, but I believe they deserve the amount of time and attention I give to them. I made these Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's Buttercream Frosting about a year ago and proclaimed them to be 'thee best cupcakes evah!'....and they soooo are.

In case you're new to reading this blog or are planning on making cupcakes for St. Patty's Day celebration this year you might want to try this recipe.  You won't be disappointed!  Be sure to check back next Monday for two - yes, I said TWO - delicious cupcake ideas for St. Patty's Day!

{Day 8} 12 Days of Cupcakes - Guiness Chocolate Cupcakes with Baileys Buttercream Frosting

These Guiness Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's Buttercream were a hit with my 'test panel' when I made them earlier in the year.  I hailed them as the THEE best cupcakes evah.  So, for today's cupcake I wanted to revisit my favorite cupcake and share my updated recipe with you. 

Guiness Chocolate Cupcakes
with Bailey's Buttercream
Makes 20 to 24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup Guiness Stout
2 Sticks (1 Cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I like Hershey's)
2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache Filling 
9 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 Tbsp. Jameson Irish whiskey (optional)

Baileys Frosting (see Recipe Notes)
3 to 4 cups Confectioner's Sugar
1 stick unsalted butter - room temperature
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream

To make the cupcakes:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Melt butter with the beer in a heavy sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Whisk in cocoa powder until smooth; allow sauce to cool slightly.

3. Whisk  flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl and set aside.

4.  In a mixer bowl, blend eggs and sour cream on medium speed; beat in the cooled cocoa sauce until combined.

5. Beat in flour mixture until slightly combined.  Then fold the batter to completely combine the ingredients.

6 . Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full and bake for 17 -20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.
To  make ganache filling:
1. Place chopped chocolate a large glass bowl.

2. Heat heavy cream on medium high until it comes to a simmer. 

3. Remove from heat and immediately pour over chocolate pieces and stir until completely mixed and glossy in apperance; stir in butter and whiskey until combined. 

4. Set aside to allow ganache to set (thicken)  and cool completely.  (Ganache should be soft enough to pipe into the cupcake)

Fill the cupcakes:
1.Hollow out the center of the cupcake using a mini ice cream scooper, melon baller or apple corer - a sharp paring knife works fine as well.  Discard (aka eat) the leftover cake bits.

2. Fill a piping bag with the ganache and snip off about 1/2" from the tip and fill each hole in the cupcakes to the top. You can spoon the filling into the cakes, as well.

To make the frosting:
1. Whip butter on medium speed until light and fluffy. 

2. Gradually add confectioner's sugar - (adding about a tablespoon at a time lends to a very nice texture)

3. Once butter becomes thick and stiffend, slowly add in the Bailey's.

4. Continue whipping frosting until combined.  Frost cupcakes as desired.  

{Day Four} 12 Days of Cupcakes - Chocolate Cupcakes and Peanut Butter Frosting

These chocolate peanut butter cupcakes tastes like little Reese's peanut butter cups - they are SO GOOD!  I added little crunchy toffee bits to mine but you might want to add a peanut butter cup, mini Nutter Butter or a bite size peanut butter cookie to yours.

I am sharing a simple and easy chocolate cake recipe and an even easier Peanut Butter Frosting with you.  It's so easy you can even mix it by hand - which is something I never do - but that is because most of my recipes call for creaming together butter and sugar.....this recipe can be made all in one bowl and bakes up fluffy and moist!  The Peanut Butter frosting is smooth and creamy and really just melts in your mouth.

Chocolate Cupcakes

To Make:
3/4 cup cocoa powder*
1 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
3/4 tsp Salt
2 Large Eggs (slightly beaten)
3/4 Cup Water (room temperature)
1/2 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Sour Cream
1 Tbsp Vanilla
1 Stick Melted Butter (Cooled to room temperature)

To Bake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with paper cupcake liners.

2. Whisk together in a bowl, cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder & salt.

3. Add in eggs, water, milk sour cream, vanilla and butter.

4. Whisk ingredients together until well blended - about 3 minutes, be sure to scrape down sides.

5. Pour batter into liners 2/3 full and bake for 18-20 minutes.  Cupcakes are done when centers spring back or a toothpick inserted in the centers come out clean.

6.  Allow cupcakes to cook in pan for 5 minutes then allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

* I like Hershey's Cocoa powder because it's the easiest stuff to find...however, if you come across a really good powder like Callebaut or Sharffen Berger chocolate try them out.

Peanut Butter Frosting

1/3 Cup Peanut Butter
4 1/2 Cups Confetioner's Sugar
1/4 Cup Milk
1 1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla

1.  Mix Peanut Butter until light and fluffy. 

2.  Add two cups confectioner's sugar - mix on low until well combined; add milk and vanilla until combined.

3.  Gradually add in the remaining confectioner's sugar; add extra milk if necessary to get desired consistency.

Cupcake Monday: Cupcakes for a Cause

This weekend I made a batch of cupcakes for a great cause.  Last week my friend, Kayte, who is participating in the March of Dimes March for Babies Walk, asked if a group of her girlfriends at work would rally 'round and bake some treats for a fundraising bake sale. Kayte lost her daughter Annabelle a few days after she was born prematurely and wants to raise $1500 for her team. 

I am always wanting and needing a reason to bake something so, it was not even an option for me to NOT do this.  I decided to make Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes and I made cupcake toppers with the March of Dimes Logo on it and another topper to Walk for Babies.  I piped on some tinted vanilla frosting an voila!

I even made a quickie bake sale banner fashioned with a March of Dimes Cupcake that I designed.  If I had time (and this wan't my day job) - there would have been a dessert buffet with all the fixins'!

I also made Vanilla Toffee Crunch Cupcake Pops, but I was only able to snap a picture on my cell phone and the picture didn't come out so great....but word is they taste delicious!

Please, if you would like to make a donation to Kayte's team, please go to her team site for more details.

Also don't forget to enter for a chance to win an awesome custom Princess and The Frog themed party set courtesy of Cupcake Wishes & Birthday Dreams!

Unique Super Bowl Themed Cupcakes

Like any modern gal, I like to watch football players, ahem, games with my husband and can say for the most part, I get it. I enjoy the thrill of the game, the action, the hard hitting....bodies....oh....I really do. However, there is nothing more exciting to me than the end of the season. The wrap up. The Big Show. THEE GAME!  You see, any opportunity that I have to put my insanity & creativity to work is an opportunity that must happen. So, with the Super Bowl just a little close to two weeks away, I went-a-Googlin' to find some ideas for cupcakes, because....I do cupcakes, right?

What I found in my initial search, surpised me in that there didn't seem to be much liberty taken in the way of making unique Super Bowl themed cupcakes.  I kept finding the tried and true Football in Grass cupcake.  You know.....this one:

I mean, don't get me wrong, they're cute and an easy way to doll up a teeny cake.  But, it's just been done SO MUCH!  It's almost the go to decoration for football season cupcakes - a staple, in fact.  That's fine, but where was the TWIST?  The SPIN?  The TAKE ON... .  Still, I remained optimistic and knew that there must be other creative geniuses who have decorated with originality, some delicious teeny cakes for The Big Show.

I searched low and high and eventually found a nice handful of ideas.  I finally decided on a Top Ten that do Super Bowl Themed Cupcakes justice - I even found, what I like to call, a man-cupcake recipe that I'll definitely be making over the weekend.

Top Ten Super Bowl Cupcakes!

I think this little guy is just adorable (he's actually a cake, but they have a similar design on the Wilton website for a cupcake)!  If you have the patience for it I say do it!  They're eye catching and for some crazy and almost sick reason, people enjoy eating cupcakes that look like people.....I think.

1.

For a real guy's guy Superbowl cupcake,  here are two that are designed to look like party food!

Hello Cupcake's Pizza Cupcake Cake

2.

Smiley's Sweets and Creations Hamburger Sliders Cupcakes

3.

Here are some good old fashioned, team logo cupcakes.  Yes, we know, these have been done before too, but it's about piping technique in this case.  (For the record, I'm not hinting that the Saints will make it to the Super Bowl, I'm just saying, Reggie Bush is a cutie and that's all I know  )

4.

5.

Yeah, I know what I said, and even though I think the whole football in the grass concept is soooo OVAH, here are some ideas that I think are allowable because they have personality, like this one by Wilton

6.

...or the next two which to me are more simplistic.

7.

I love how these cupcakes by Cupcake Chic have lil' chocolate Peanut M&M's and the piped on detail for the football is nice and simple.

8.

Here is another option from Sweet Avenue Bakeshop; use team colors and decorate with cupcake picks and flags.

9.

This last idea is my top choice....has nothing to do with appearance .  These Chocolate Guiness Cupcakes aren't even necessarily football related, but the fact that they have Guiness in them intrigued me enough to want to make a dozen this weekend (look for the final result in my next post).  Topping this cupcake with a festive cupcake pick or one of those cute lil' Peanut M&M footballs would really finish it off for a Super Bowl party. Here's the recipe if you want to make them!

10.

I have a bonus one -but I couldn't get the picture saved to my computer.  Here is the direct link to the Cupcake Queen's football cupcakes on her Flickr page.  Love those little miniature football players!!!

While we're speaking of cupcakes, I came across this Reynold's Baking Cups website yesterday where you can virtually create a cupcake and then get the recipe for it.  Also they have some adorably cute decorative baking cups; my favorite is this pink and red Damask patterned one that I plan to order for party next month!


Photo Credits:
Wilton Cupcakes
Pizza Cupcake Cake
Hamburger Sliders Cupcakes
Cupcake Chic Super Bowl Cupcakes
Cutsie Cakes - Green frosted cupcakes with football
Colts Logo Cupcakes
Little Pastry Shoppe Saints Cupcakes
Celebrations.com Super Bowl Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes Recipe