Chateau Gateau

Alana

My buddy Manny is moving to Grand Prairie next week for a job he got up there. Last night was his going away party, so I figured I could justify taking the time to bake something to bring, even though I should be studying for my mental health final (positive coping mechanism?). I was trying to figure out what to bring, and I mentioned beer cupcakes to another friend of mine. I found the Irish Car Bomb recipe, and it didn’t take a lot of effort for him to convince me that it was the right one to choose!

Some how I justified buying an entire 26 of Jameson when the recipe only required 2 tsp…

The baking went really well. The cake itself is very moist, which I find is the trend when you add beer to any kind of cake batter. It wasn’t too hard to cut out the middles of the cupcakes either, which I thought might be a problem. In the original recipe it said to use the wide end of a decorating tip, but I have a cupcake corer from Crate & Barrel that I bought a while ago. Some how I haven’t used it until now. It worked really well, so I will likely use it more frequently in the future.

When I was making the ganache, I found that the flavour of the Jameson I used (aka alcohol) was quite strong when it was warm. When it actually came to eating the cupcakes however, it didn’t taste so boozey.

For the mini-cupcakes, I just piped a small amount of ganache in a circle on the top of each cupcake. I initially wasn’t going to bother with the ganache at all, but then they wouldn’t be true Irish car bombs!

The Bailey’s icing was good, but then again it always is! The original recipe called for 5 cups of icing sugar, however, there was quite a bit of Bailey’s to put in. I didn’t want it to be too sweet, so I cut 1 cup. I also found that the Bailey’s really stiffens up the icing. Not sure how that works, but it was nice considering it was quite hot out and I didn’t want the icing to be runny (I think it was about 20 degrees C… maybe not that hot, but this is May in Canada. Let’s get real here).

All around, these were quite well received, especially when people found out that they were based off of Irish car bombs. Definitely a repeat recipe for me 🙂 I got this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker via Pinterest. Enjoy!!

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Guinness stout
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ¾ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• ¾ teaspoons salt
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:

1. Line muffin tins, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Put the butter and Guinness into a medium sauce pan (pot more so), and simmer on medium heat until the butter is melted.
3. Whisk in the cocoa until smooth, and remove from the heat to cool slightly. Whisk periodically to prevent a film from forming on the surface.
4. Drink the rest of the Guinness (this is not a necessary step, but it makes the whole process that much more enjoyable).
5. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
6. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the sour cream and eggs together until combined (just a couple seconds with my Kitchen Aide on 4).
7. Slowly mix the Guinness-cocoa into the eggs/sour cream until combined (I just ran my Kitchen Aide on 2 and poured as much as I could, then spatula’d the rest in).
8. Add the flour mixture, and briefly beat until all the dry ingredients are just moist. Fold batter until all the ingredients are evenly combined.
9. Pour batter into lined muffin tins, ~2/3 to ¾ full. Bake for 17 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool.

Whiskey Ganache Filling:

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey

Directions:

1. Finely chop chocolate, and put into a small-medium heat proof bowl. 
2. Simmer the heavy cream, and pour over the chocolate. Let sit for a minute, then mix with a spatula using a mashing/folding motion. (If you’re Alana, you put the cream on first, started chopping the chocolate, and half way through realized that the cream was boiling… oops).
3. While warm, mix in the butter and whiskey with the same mashing/folding motion.
4. Allow to cool to a consistency that can be piped.

Baileys Frosting:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 6 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream

Directions:

1. Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
2. Add the confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing until incorporated each time.
3. Add the Bailey’s, and beat until evenly combined, scraping down the side of the bowl with a spatula.

Assembly:

1. Core the cupcakes (with a decorating tip, knife, or whatever), so there is a hole that goes ~ ½ way though the cupcake.
2. Pipe the cooled ganache into the holes using a larger round piping tip (I used a smaller one because my ganache was still pretty liquid-y, and I didn’t want it to all run out of the bag)
3. Ice the cupcakes.
4. Enjoy!