It seems the weather got the memo of today's holiday before I did. It is cold and dreary which seems to fit right in with Ireland's heritage. Even though I didn't feel like doing anything other than lying around the house until I could see sunnier horizons, I managed to pull together a perfect pie of the shepherd's kind...
I actually baked my shepherd's pie in a pie pan for lack of a more suitable casserole type dish. It's too bad I didn't have an iron skillet; now that would have been ironic!*
*You can send me hate mail later for that one.
But low and behold... I took no pictures of my festive lunch.
Instead I fondly remembered last St. Patrick's Day when I embarked on making Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes! Since that fateful day I have never tasted anything so deceitfully cute and fun. In fact they are spiked and sinfully rich.
The recipe is from the always impressive SmittenKitchen. (I think mine came out prettier though.. shhh)
I have made this recipe plenty times and have slightly changed the original, so my tried and true version is below.
The first batch with fun sprinkles were done a few weeks before St. Patty's Day and the green ones were made for the real deal. I still get requests for these. They are labor intensive but are sure to help you relax after all your dishes have been cleaned. :)Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes makes about 24 cupcakes... and maybe a few taste testers
Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup stout (Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
Ganache Filling
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (Baker's chocolate in the cubes works amazingly)
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon Irish whiskey (Jameson)
Baileys Frosting
4 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tablespoons Baileys
Make the cupcakes: Preheat 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. Set aside.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend. Beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 15 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack.
Make the ganache: Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate (use the microwave to cheat but be careful your cream doesn't scorch). Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined.
Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.
Make the frosting: 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 powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
[This is a fantastic trick I picked up while working on the cupcakes article for Martha Stewart Living; the test kitchen chefs had found that when they added the sugar slowly, quick buttercream frostings got less grainy, and tended to require less sugar to thicken them up.]
When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.
Ice and decorate the cupcakes!
*I used a star tip to pipe my icing and used just about every type of sprinkle I could find in the pantry. For the green icing I used a small amount of green food coloring in about 1/3 of batch of icing.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day!