Boozy Cupcakes

Okay, so I haven't been 100% honest with all of you. Remember how I spent all of August cooking healthy, vegetarian food? Well the vegetarian part I was very dedicated to. The healthy part...

August 13th marked Will's 26th birthday, and what was I supposed to do, hand the boy a dish of hummus with a candle in it? Birthdays require cake. Yummy cake. And I'd be damned if he wasn't going to have some. The original idea was simple, instead of a cake that has layers that must be stacked and must be carefully wrapped if not eaten at once, I would make cupcakes. So easy to store! So easy to assemble! So how exactly did it end up a 4 hour process?

The trouble started when I decided, instead of just picking a very simple cupcake recipe from America's Test Kitchen and a very simple frosting, I would just look at the Smitten Kitchen archives, just to peek. That's when I found the holy grail of grown-up cupcakes. A cupcake with such wonderful ingredients so perfectly arranged, all I could think was that I could not be responsible for them not existing. I could not have on my conscience that I had known of these cupcakes and walked away. I discovered the Irish Car Bomb Cupcake.

Guinness cupcake. Whiskey ganache. Bailey's buttercream icing. I stared at the computer screen with my mouth agape. Will needed that cupcake.

The real complication here is that 3 separate parts must be made from scratch, and then you actually have to gouge a hole in the cake, stuff it with ganache, and then ice the whole thing without smearing the ganache into the icing and making a streaky mess. I don't do baking like this. In fact it has only been about a year now that I've even attempted baking that wasn't from a box labeled "Sara Lee". My eating a can of frosting days are not all that far behind me, but Will deserved something a bit fancy, especially after I made myself a Maderia Almond Cake for my own birthday in February.

I was a bit late getting started. Having bought Will tickets to a Phillies game that night at Citi Field, we had friends meeting us at the apartment at 5:00. "If I start before 1:00," I thought, "I'll have over 4 hours to bang these guys out." Somehow it was 1:15 before I had the first ingredients on the stove.

Step 1:
Guinness Cupcakes

Ingredients:
- 1 cup stout (you know, Guinness)
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture a little bit at a time and beat at slow speed. Once all flour is added, use a rubber spatula to 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 comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes completely.

It took me a little longer then 17 minutes, probably more like 19. You want to be completely sure the cupcakes aren't mush, they need to have a bit of structure for the next step. The cooling completely also got to me, as time ticked by I got impatient. I may have rotated the cupcake tins into the freezer to expedite the process...

Step 2
Whiskey Ganache

Ingredients:
- 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons butter at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons Irish Whiskey (Jameson would be most traditional, I used a brand from Clontarf)

Directions:
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. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate you can pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds) Add the butter and whiskey and stir it until combined.

Cool the ganache until it is thick but still soft (putting in the fridge for 10 minutes speeds this along). Use a 1" cookie cutter or apple corer (finally, a use for my apple corer) cut the center out of the cupcakes. You want to go 2/3 of the way down. Smitten Kitchen suggests using a small spoon or grapefruit knife to help get the centers out, I found a fondue fork worked pretty well. Put the ganache into a piping bag, or if you are like me and don't own one, a gallon ziplock bag with the bottom corner cut out. Fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Step 3
Bailey's Frosting

Ingredients:
- 3-4 cups confectioners sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 4 Tablespoons Baileys

Directions:
Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes until light, fluffy, and creamy. Turn the mixer to its lowest speed and slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.

When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys and whip it until combined. It this makes the frosting too thin, beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

By this point it was after 4pm, and I was getting nervous. The poor birthday boy had to help me ice the cupcakes, half because of time constraints and half because I flat out sucked at it, constantly getting the ganache whipped up into the frosting in dark streaks. We developed system, Will would put a giant blob (about 3 Tablespoons) directly on top of the hole with the ganache, and then spread it down the cupcake top. At this point he would hand it off to me and I would drag a spatula around the top to make it smooth and pretty. We finally got them all iced and arranged with 5 minutes left on the clock. Just enough time to wipe the sweat from my brow and shove my hair under a Phillies cap.

On Smitten Kitchen Deb writes: Do ahead: You can bake the cupcakes a week or two in advance and store them, well wrapped, in the freezer. You can also fill them before you freeze them. They also keep filled — or filled and frosted — in the fridge for a day. (Longer, they will start to get stale.)

I probably should have worked ahead on these, unless it's a really rainy chilly day (like St. Patrick's Days can tend to be) I probably wouldn't make these all in one day again. As a treat though, they killed. Everyone who ate them raved, and a coworker who took one home to her boyfriend came back to report I had received a proposal of marriage. Seriously, these are compliment garnering cupcakes. The guests seemed a little tipsy after eating. And the birthday boy seemed happy they did not contain eggplant.

Guinness is Good for You

Top a' tha marnin' toe ya. Heather and I just recently got back from Ireland as many of you know and we had a fantastic time. One of the Highlights of our trip was visiting the Guinness storehouse. Don't get me wrong. Heather and I know how touristy a thing this is to do, but if we didn't go it would be like going to India and not seeing the Taj Mahal. (Side note: The Irish might consider the storehouse a thing of equal beauty and spiritual significance.) We trekked through the rain and wind to the west side of the city center to get there and we arrived just in time to grab a departing tour. Or should I say intro to a tour because the tour is self guided.

The first two things they tell you are equally ridiculous. They start by showing you a copy of the lease that Arthur Guinness signed to build the brewery at St. James's Gate. The lease is for nine thousand years. This was in 1759. This is the eighteenth century equivalent of saying elevendy billion years or perhaps saying forever and ever and ever. The second thing they tell you is that the interior of the storehouse is built in the shape of a giant pint glass. He then goes on to tell us how many pints of Guinness it would take to fill a pint glass that size. I don't remember the number because I didn't care. It's not like they would do it. That would be foolish--entertaining but foolish. Hearing that made be think that perhaps the Irish think in those terms on a daily basis. If an Irishman were to see the Grand Canyon, do you suppose his first thought would be "I wonder how many pints of Guinness..."

The ground floor gives you a rundown of the ingredients used to make beer and how Guinness's ingredients are better than everyone else's. It then goes on to say that the fifth ingredient is the founder himself, Arthur Guinness. I'm not sure whether they're saying that his interminable spirit brought the company to fruition, or if they're saying that his ashes were scattered amongst the ingredients thereby making him the fifth ingredient. You know, like a soylent green situation. Also, because the brewery was founded shortly before the American revolution, the portraiture of Arthur Guinness makes him look like a founding father or something. It might be that in Ireland, brewing a decent beer is as important as founding a nation. Then moving upward there are little videos and displays showing you how Guinness is made. There's even a little tray of roasted barley to taste. Eating roasted barley is a lot like eating coffee grounds--interesting until about two second into chewing. Then you just have to deal with it until swallowing.

There are lots of little videos about how Guinness was transported through the years. The tone of the videos makes the mission seem so noble--like this is God's work. Don't get me wrong, I love Guinness, but I don't think the motives were entirely altruistic. The highlight of the floor is the tasting lab where we both got a free taste of Guinness. A little something to tide us over until our free pint at the top.

The next floor is a tribute to advertising throughout Guinness's history. Man is there a lot of it. Much of it includes dubious health claims like "Guinness is good for you" or "Guinness makes you strong" spoken by virile men with handlebar mustaches. They even pulled a publicity stunt at one point in which thousands of bottles were dropped into the ocean each containing a message from king Neptune telling you to drink Guinness. Apparently they are still being found today. I will say that these ads, despite being false and environmentally unfriendly, were effective because I really wanted my Guinness. We blew through the next few floors because they didn't have as much stuff on them.

We got to the penultimate floor and it's perfect pint display. This is where they have a bunch of taps set up and you get to try your hand at pouring the perfect pint. You have the option of either getting your free pint this way or going upstairs to the gravity bar and having them pour it. Heather didn't want to be put on the spot--also she's lazy--but I'm all in. I waited patiently in line until it was my turn where I was instructed to start pouring with the glass at a 45 degree angle, straighten it out and stop at mid-harp (the Guinness glasses have a harp logo near the top.) Then I was told to wait two minutes and then fill up the rest by pushing back on the tap (rather than towards me) to top it off with only Guinness and no nitrogen. Very scientific stuff, I won't bore you. My performance was good enough to earn me an honorary certificate.

I had my pint; the only thing left to do was get Heather hers. We headed up to the gravity bar, got her pint and sat down. The bar has a 360 degree view of Dublin. It would be a really cool place to hang out again if we didn't have to pay eleven euros (student rate--because we're liars) to get in. The view was rainy but pleasant and a great way to enjoy our well earned stouts.

Before we left we hit the gift shop where I got my dad chocolate in the shape of a Guinness pint and we got ourselves two bottles of Guinness Foreign Extra--one of their original recipes with extra hops designed for foreign travel. I've never had it before and I didn't know if they sell it in the U.S. We only got around to trying it two nights ago and it was pretty good. It was nice and hoppy and not as thick while still maintaining its Guinness-ness. I think I like the draught better but sometimes it's nice to live life on the edge. I'm glad we went to the storehouse. It gave us something fun, interesting and uniquely Irish to do on a crappy day--which there are a lot of. I would recommend it highly.