Guinness Cupcakes With Bailey's Frosting

DrGaellon's Note:

The ultimate St. Patrick's Day dessert. Prep time includes time for cooling in step 2. Adapted from a recipe at http://tinyurl.com/ao6avy

• Total Time: 1 hrs 5 mins
• Prep Time: 40 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Cupcakes

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup Guinness stout
• 2/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder, sifted
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Frosting

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 pinch table salt
• 3 tablespoons irish cream (Bailey's or Carolan's)
• 1 tablespoon milk
• green sprinkles

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F Grease 24-30 cupcake cups, or fill with paper liners.
2. In a saucepan, heat the butter, Guinness, cocoa and brown sugar, whisking often, until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
3. Into the work bowl of a stand mixer (or into a large mixing bowl), sift together salt, flour, white sugar and baking soda. Add the cooled Guinness mixture and beat on medium for 1 minute. Add eggs and sour cream and beat on medium for 2 minutes or until smooth.
4. Divide the batter evenly amongst the cupcake cups. Bake in preheated oven 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then remove and transfer to a cooling rack until completely cooled.
5. Meanwhile, in (cleaned) work bowl of stand mixer, cream butter until very light and fluffy. Add salt, and slowly add confectioners sugar. Do not run the mixer above low, or the sugar will spray all over your kitchen. Add a couple of spoonsful at a time until it has all been absorbed into the butter. Add Bailey's and milk until spreadable consistency is achieved.
6. Frost cupcakes with Bailey's frosting. Sprinkle with green jimmies.

Reviews

[cooking_neko83]

A very festive recipe that is also tasty to have any time of the year. The recipe was very easy to follow and produced moist cupcakes. When making the frosting: please, please sift the powdered sugar when adding it to the butter! That way you won't get lumps like I did. I also didn't use as much of the sugar as called for. Excellent recipe!

[Zoesmama]

Why oh why can I only give 5 stars?? I knew the Guinness would add something special to the cake. It's such a rich beer, it kept the cakes moist and delicious with the perfect texture. I was a wee bit heavy handed with the Bailey's :) and the frosting was absolutely awesome. I got rave reviews on these and I absolutely can't wait to make them again. These are right up there with my favorite cupcake, red velvet. Thanks so much for posting this!

[Smiruz]

Wonderfully moist cupcakes. The Guinness flavor is not overpowering - just adds a rich note to the chocolate. On the advice of other reviewers, I used 1/2 cup less sugar in the fronting, and it turned out great. Just the right amount of sweet. I only had "jumbo" paper cups, so the cupcakes took almost twice as long to bake than the instructions said, but they turned out fine.