Chocolate, whiskey, and beer cupcakes (a.k.a. work-appropriate cocktail cupcakes)

One of the awesome things about baking with alcohol is that you lose the potency of the alcohol in the process, and just retain the essence of the flavor. And THAT means you can take Irish Car Bomb (chocolate, whiskey, and beer, named after the drink) cupcakes to work and not get in trouble. Because they won't effect your performance. Except for the moment you roll your eyes up into your head with an emphatic "oh....my.... that is SO good..."

We start with Sir Sous Chef, who is getting festive by stealing my snowman's winter hat.


And then we pour the Guinness. And wait for it to stop foaming. And wait.


Melt some butter in it. And some chocolate. It already smells rich and delightful. I think it's the butter. Or maybe the chocolate.


Pile up the dry ingredients.


Take a break and mix some sour cream and eggs.


Add your chocolate/guinness/butter mixture and then start on the dry ingredients.


Put the batter in pretty cupcake wrappers. I was seduced in Michaels by a coupon and some Martha Stewart cupcake wrappers.....


Get them in the oven and get started on the Jameson chocolate ganache.


Chop and melt some chocolate. I really like this Swiss dark chocolate from Trader Joes. Especially the price.



Cupcakes are done! Pull them out!


Back to the ganache. Whisk in some butter...


Add some whiskey.


Set aside. :) Start the Bailey's buttercream. Beat butter and confectioners' sugar.


Bad blurry photo, but I'm adding Bailey's to a whole lot of butter and confectioners' sugar. It needed a lot of milk too. And a lot of Bailey's. :)


Skip ahead because I failed to take pictures...(cut me some slack, I'm not a photographer or even a professional in anything, really.)

Pipe ganache into holes you cut in the cupcakes in the shape of a cone.


Pipe on the buttercream. Try not to make them swirling vortexes of spirals like I did. Add some dark chocolate chunks. Take some dark pictures in my poorly lit dining room. (Flash on, it's too bright. Flash off, too dark. Meh.)


At least in this one you can see my festive wrapper, even if the cupcake looks radioactive.


Yum. I might get yelled at later, but I'm posting this anyway. :)

cupcake contest: part deux

Notice my gigantaloid t-shirt in this one. It's a men's XL. Mark had to pin the sleeves back so I could even work. I went home and set it on fire. No, just kidding. But I did throw it out.

Drumroll, please. The final piece. 4 hours, 5-8 lbs. of fondant, 20ish cupcakes, 1 batch of green buttercream, and some of my sanity later. Ta da!

This is me talking to Anne Byrn. Squeeeeeeee!

And because I couldn't have done it without the support I received, here's some more fun.

By the end I was safely back in my cupcake t-shirt. Thanks also to my work friends who came to support me, bought me a cute pink apron, and for those who voted in the contest to get me there in the first place.

And because my face in this picture cracks me up so much, I will end the contest post with this one.

cupcake contest recap

So the cupcake contest was this weekend (sponsored by the newspaper which I refuse to name so as not to give them any more free advertising.) I didn't win, for a lot of reasons, but in order to avoid an overwhelmingly negative post, I'm going to focus on the fact that I was really proud of my entry and how it came out. It felt really awesome to stand behind it and say "yes, this is mine." I even got to meet Anne Byrn, who was more than gracious and so friendly. She signed my cupcake cookbook, which was the first one I ever used. Besides having my posse of family and friends there to cheer me on, meeting her was the highlight of my day.

I have a lot of photos, courtesy of Mark, that depict the process, so I'm going to do a photo essay of sorts and let them speak for themselves. I made the pumpkin patch scene from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Everything except for the actual cupcakes was made on site - the icing and the sculptures, etc. Here is part 1.

When my Comcast modem stops freaking out about me uploading photos, there will be a part 2.

Stay tuned...