Irish Stout Cupcake! With whiskey ganache! With Irish Cream frosting! The Trevor Cupcake

I call this one the Trevor Cupcake after my buddy ...Trevor.  (I'm not so good with the clever naming system.)  Trevor is off the proverbial boat from Ireland - I think he actually took a place to get here when he moved to PA in 2008.  He was in the class with me in grad school that inspired me to start baking experiments.  So what does Trevor have to do with cupcakes besides eat them?  Well, when you think of an Irishman, what comes to mind?  Beer?  Guiness perhaps?  Whiskey?  An Irish Cream liquor?  Potatoes?  Sure - but I'm not down with putting potatoes in a cupcake.  So this was one of my first experiments.  Since then, I've heard it called and Irish Car Bomb cupcake, An Irish Stoudt Cupcake, or An Irish Party Cupcake.  There are a ton of variations with this cupcake but the premise of using traditional Irish booze remains the same.  These are great for your Saint Patty's Day celebration!  And sometimes there is leftover booze!  (If you have too much leftover, you might have forgotten your celabratory nip!)  Erin Go Braugh!

Note:  I originally found the recipe on Smitten Kitchen but have since adapted it a little based on my own preference.  The Smitten Kitchen recipe is also GREAT though!

For the cupcakes:

• 1 cup stout
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup sour cream (full fat is best)
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• For the filling:
• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
• 2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• 1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey
• For the frosting
• Note: If you want lots of frosting on each cake, go ahead and double this recipe – I did!
• 3 to 4 cups confections' sugar
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3 to 4 tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream (or more, to taste) Since I doubled I used about 3tbsp bailey’s and 3 tbsp heavy cream since I had that left over
• Splash of vanilla & a splash of rum extract– why not?  I live on the edge.

Get ready: pre-heat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.

Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Remove from heat. Let cool a bit. I found that putting the pot into a shallow pan of cold water helped the cooling process.

In a separate large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt.

In another large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just until combined. WARNING! – if you haven’t let the stoudt cool to a luke-warm it will cook the eggs when you add it here and you don’t want that!

Add the dry mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using a rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.

Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. I found that I had enough batter for EXACTLY 24 cupcakes.  Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly.  Cool 17-20 minutes.  Cool cupcakes completely.

While your cupcakes cool, make the filling!  Chop the chocolate into coarse but roughly even pieces, and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until it is simmering (but not boiling) and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for about a minute and then stir until smooth. If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can put it on a double-boiler or give it 20 seconds in the microwave to help the chocolate get sufficiently melty. And honestly – who uses a double-boiler anymore?!  WTF?!  Add the butter, Irish Cream, and whiskey and stir until combined.  You might need to stick it back in the microwave 10-15 second if the butter doesn’t melt all the way. Take a nip of the whiskey – you’ve got a while to go!

Make space for the filling. The original recipe suggests using an apple corer to cut out a section from your cooled cupcakes to fill, but lacking one I found that the cake is sturdy enough that if you gently cut out a circle using a small, sharp knife, it works just fine.  I used a grapefruit section knife.  You want to cut halfway to 2/3 of the way down. 

Fill the cupcakes. NOTE:  I like to do this when the filling has thickened a little – about 15-30 min in the fridge will help – stir it every 10 min.  You can pipe in the filling, or if it is still pretty smooth and fluid, you can just spoon it in.  I “piped” it by putting the filling in a ziplock bag and cutting the corner.

Make the frosting. In an electric mixer, mix the butter on medium speed until it is very fluffy. Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar, starting with a few tablespoons at a time of your sugar until the frosting looks thick enough to spread.  At this point, add in the Irish Cream/heavy cream and vanilla and whip it until combined. Beat in as much or as little of the remaining confectioners' sugar until the frosting has reached your desired consistency.  Since this is essentially a basic buttercream, here are my tips for a great buttercream:  This is best done on a stand mixer!  If your mixer has a glass or metal bowl, fill the bowl with HOT water from the tap and let sit for a few minutes to warm up the bowl, drain the water and dry the bowl and immediately add your butter while the bowl is still warm  - this will help your butter get fluffy faster without having to microwave the butter first.  If you’re spreading the frosting with a knife you might want it a little thinner.  If you’re going to pipe or decorate with a pastry bag I say go a little thicker.  I also thought about adding some orange zest at this point – I think that would go well – maybe will give it a shot next time.

MMMMMMM....Beer caramel sauce

I don’t like beer – that’s right!  I said it!  I do like most other booze but I don’t much care for beer.  Beer bread on the other hand- - yum!  Beer cupcakes – oh yeah!  Beer in any form except for actual beer form is really what I’m looking for.  The ironic thing is that two of my very good friends actually own a beer company:  Evil Genius Beer Company.  Every time I take a swig of one of their new products, I think to myself –yep – tastes like beer!  I’m told it’s all really good and in fairness, their Good n’Evil Kolsh is pretty good – even for someone who’s not a beer drinker.  One of these dudes, Trevor, is one of my besties and listens to my overall life nonsense on a regular basis.  Like when I wonder if gnomes are real or if they are just little people with funny hats – Trevor is my go-to guy.  So when Trev asks for a cake, I’ll usually just make one for fear that he’ll stop listening to my crap. 

So their company is still pretty new and when they signed with a local Philly distributor, a celebration was in order.  Trevor called and asked for a cake to bring to the distributor and I easily agreed.  Now, when it comes to making cakes – I pretty much got a system but working beer in – well that’s always a challenge.  For their cake, I didn’t want to go too crazy – I’m not sure of the audience so what if they are all chocolate folks but I gave them banana flavor?  That’s a bad scene and I’m sure it’s not quite the response my pals would want.  I went with a vanilla layer.  I filled it with a delicious pastry cream – because I’m in a pastry cream phase – more on that another time.  But before I put it together, I assaulted my cake layers with the business end of a fork and made holes all over.  Then I poured a spiced beer caramel sauce made from my buddies’ beer.  That’s right – and old fashioned poke cake!  Why don’t we appreciate poke cakes more?  They can turn a dry cake into a food-gasm in the space of 2 seconds.  I mean when other stuff is dry, we moisten it right?  Why not cake? And honestly, have you ever poured caramel over anything and regretted it?  Me either.   So I whipped up some beer caramel – or rather, I experimented with hot sugar and beer.    I got to something that seemed lovely and so the recipe is below – it’s should come as no surprise that it’s beer, sugar, and cream – wtf else would it be? 

Finally, I attemped to make their Good n’ Evil logo – a true labor of love.  There is a chic on there with a horn and a halo – hence good n’ evil.  Trevor calls her…..I forget – I listen to his crap too but sometimes when he’s talking I think about cupcakes or rainbows.  Anywho, the chic and some pretty intriqite hops all outlined in an oval with a  banner going across makes for some pretty challenging detail work.  The rest of the label at first appears just a golden color but as it turns out, has a very faint hops-like pattern.  Here is my version of their logo in fondant:

I rolled out and cut – kindof freehand and kindof using some paper cutouts as a guide.  The hard part was getting the details right.  I was still pretty new at fondant so I wasn’t sure the best method to use was.  I started  with just those edible markers from  Americolor.  That wasn’t really giving the effect I was hoping for so then I considered piping but that doesn’t have enough control for such small specific details.  Finally, I made myself a “paint” using vodka and food color gels.  At the end, I was pretty proud of it. 

Here is the final cake – covered in fondant that I sprayed gold and then went over with some of my vodka paint.  I also used it to paint on the faint hops pattern. Here is the finished product.  I was pretty proud of it at the time and I still am but now I think I'd work a little harder to get the fondant even.  

Here is how I made the beer caramel:

24 oz beer

2 c. brown sugar

1 c. white sugar

2 tbsp butter

2 c. heavy cream

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Boil the beer until you're down to about a cup left.  The alcohol will boil out first and then the water.  It takes a while. 

Add in both sugars and stir gently

Let simmer and when it looks like the sugar has dissolved, add in the butter.  Continue to simmer until you get to a  caramel color and it becomes syrupy.  If you're not sure you're there yet - try the ball method of testing.  Drop a bit into a glass of cool water and if the syrup balls up, holding it's form rather than just dissolving into the water, you're probably good to go.

When your at a deep amber color and you've reached the syrup stage, you're ready to add the cream. BE CAREFUL!  When you add the cream, it is likely to boil violently!  I usually add the cream with my hand and arm covered with a dishtowel in case it splatters. 

The boil will drop down quickly and then you can just stir and you're pretty much done.  If it seems that the cream has cooled the mixtures down too much and you have some solid chunks, keep it on the heat for a bit until those melt. 

Stir in the vanilla - I also splashed in some cinnamon extract  to get a nice "spiced" flavor.

Voila! done! 

You could keep this caramel in the sauce in a tighly covered jar and refrigerate - I wouldn't use it beyond a week or 10 days though.