Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Buttercream
Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Buttercream
Cupcake recipe adapted from www.redshallotkitchen.com/2012/03/irish-car-bomb-cupcakes.html
Cupcakes
1 cup Guinness Draught
1 cup butter
¾ cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
Baileys Buttercream Frosting
1 cup butter, softened
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
Pinch of salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Baileys
1 to 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
To make the cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Simmer butter and beer. Whisk in cocoa powder. Cool mixture slightly.
Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl beat together the eggs and sour cream.
Add Guinness mixture to sour cream mixture and stir to combine. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture and stir to combine.
Fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 17 minutes. Recipe yields approximately 27 cupcakes if using 1 ½ scoops of batter measured with a #30 portion scoop.
To make the frosting:
Cream butter with the powdered sugar and salt. Add vanilla extract, Baileys, and heavy whipping and beat mixture until desired frosting consistency has been achieved. Frost cupcakes with a Wilton 402-2004 No. 2D Large Drop Flower Piping Tip.
Notes
I used ½ cup Scharffenberger cocoa powder (natural cocoa powder) and ¼ cup Valrhona cocoa powder (Durch-processed) because I ran out of Scharffenberger cocoa powder. Using non-Dutch-processed cocoa powder would be best though because the Guinness flavor will be more pronounced and the cupcakes will have a pretty dark mahogany color. I'm also not sure how to convert the recipe to be made entirely with Dutch-processed cocoa powder!
The cake is way too sweet but I don’t know how to reduce the sugar content without changing the volume / crumb / moisture content of the cake too drastically. The crumb is comparable to that of Betty Crocker or Pillsbury boxed mix cake. The crumb will be a bit firmer a day after the cupcakes have been baked which I find to be more preferable than eating the cake right after it has cooled completely.
I should invest in a larger portion scoop. It is time-consuming and messy to fill each cupcake liner with 1-1/2 scoops of batter.
3/2/24 - Cory’s birthday cake
Reduced sugar by 1/2 cup
Cake was less sweet, but crumb texture was not very nice
Used Valrhona cocoa powder (Dutch processed), and used baking powder only
Cake didn’t really taste like chocolate. Cake tasted like a chewy mass and the best parts were the frosting and ganache.
Cakes barely rose at all. Maybe baking soda needed as well? The normal recipe does not really rise either.
Made 1 1/2 batch of buttercream frosting
This was barely enough to frost the cake with a light crumb coat and light layer of frosting. Not enough for decorating.