Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

I'm not much of a St. Patty's reveler. W. pinched me today for not wearing green. Now I don't think I'll share any of my festive car bomb cupcakes.

The Irish car bomb is one of W.'s favorite cocktails, a drink in the boilermaker category, where a shot is dropped into beer and the entire thing is chugged: in this case, a shot of Jameson's w/ Bailey's dropped into a half pint of Guinness. Not for me, thank you. The tastes seem appealing, but downing a Guinness in one go? I'm too much of a lightweight.

But when it comes to sugar, I can hold my own. So, the other day when I was browsing around various cupcake shops online and saw the reference to car bomb cupcakes at Boulder's Tee and Cakes, I knew I had to make them.

These are one of the cupcake varieties I will be contributing to Ottawa's upcoming Cupcake Camp. Participants sign up as bakers or tasters and get together one afternoon to devour cupcakes. The money raised goes to a selected charity. What a brilliant idea. I've been busy concocting a variety of cupcakes, so more to come.

Anyway, back to today's cupcake. For the cupcake, I basically used the Guinness cake recipe from Nigella Lawson's Feast. Then, I drizzled the cupcakes with a whiskey syrup. Finally, I topped them with Bailey's buttercream. Delicious, boozy, and you don't have to down it in one go. But you just might want to!


Guinness Cupcake, adapted from Nigella Lawson's Feast
1 cup Guinness, or other stout
10 T. butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 and butter cupcake pans or line with paper cups. The recipe made 22 cupcakes for me.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda. Set aside.

Heat Guinness and butter (cut in small pieces) in a large saucepan until butter melts. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa powder and sugar. Mix in sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. Finally, whisk in flour mixture.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Fill nearly to the top. Bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.


Meanwhile, prepare the Whiskey Syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup Jameson's (or other Irish whiskey)
Stir together sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and let boil for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and stir in whiskey. Let syrup cool. Once the syrup and the cupcakes are cool, brush the cupcakes with syrup. You probably won't use all of the syrup, so just coat the cupcakes till they look damp. I'm sure you can find another use for the syrup.


Top with Bailey's Buttercream
4 egg whites
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) butter, cut into small pieces
3-4 tablespoons Bailey's or other Irish cream

Mix egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl. Set the bowl over a pan of simmering water and cook egg white mixture until sugar is dissolved and mixture is warm (about 160 degrees). Whisk egg white mixture continuously while cooking.

Remove bowl from heat and whisk mixture on high speed until stiff peaks form. Continue beating until mixture is cool and fluffy (about five minutes). Change to mixer's paddle attachment. Add butter a few tablespoons at a time and beat in thoroughly at medium-low speed. Continue adding butter and mixing thoroughly. If buttercream separates, beat at high speed for about three minutes. Add Bailey's and beat into the buttercream. Give the buttercream a few strokes with a mixing spoon until smooth.

Note: If you don't want to fuss with the meringue buttercream, you could make a simpler buttercream. Replace the vanilla and milk with Bailey's. I would also recommend upping the butter to 1/2 cup.