Guinness Cupcakes

Call me crazy, but for some reason on St. Patty's Day I feel as if everyone becomes a little Irish!  Well maybe not, but it's a good excuse to eat great food and have lots of good drinks too!  And you know I decided, instead of getting super bloated with Guinness and going into a sugar coma too, to combine the two into an amazing cupcake!  It is actually like an Irish car bomb in a cupcake, without the head rush of drinking it too fast or the risk of your Bailey's curdling once it hits the Guinness.  So enough chit chat about the drinks and good food and on with the recipe!  This could have also been ordered this past week from my bakery(Sweet Lemon Bakery), and now you can make 'em yourself whenever you want!

Utensils:
Spatula
Whisk
Mixer with whisk attachment
2 Pots
Glass bowl
Cupcake tin
Cupcake liners
Piping bags
Piping tips-round
Rack


Ingredients for Cupcake:
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

Heat oven to 350F and line cupcake tin with the liners.

Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a heavy, medium saucepan. Add cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt together. 

In the mixer beat the eggs and sour cream on medium until combined. 

Add the Guinness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat to combine. 

Reduce speed to low, add flour mixture and beat for a minute. 

Fold the batter with spatula until completely combined. 

Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 of the way full.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean(about 17 minutes)

Cool the cupcakes on a rack.

Ingredients for Ganache:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoons Jameson Irish whiskey

Place chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl.

Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. 

Let sit for one minute and then, using a rubber spatula, stir it from the center outward until smooth. Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined. 

Let ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped.

Cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes, going about two-thirds of the way down. 

Put ganache in a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Ingredients for Icing:
2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream

Whip butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. 

Reduce speed to medium-low and gradually add the powdered sugar until all of it is incorporated. 

Add Bailey's, increase the speed to medium-high and whip for another 2 to 3 minutes, until it is light and fluffy.

Yield: 24 cupcakes