I found this wonderful recipe on one of my favourite blogs last year just before St Patricks Day: The Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes! And I made them for my friends housewarming party that was around Paddys day and everyone loved them. I wasn’t completely confident with the recipe because the cupcakes were too sweet, too chocolatey and could have tasted more like Guinness in my opinion. So I decided to give them another try this year and give them a schabakery twist if you know what I mean 🙂

I have adjusted the borwneyed bakers recipe a little to my gusto. And it is a mix of metric US measures so keep your scale and your cup measurements at hand.

For 24 Cupcakes:

• 250 g butter at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp Muscovado sugar or whole cane sugar (Vollrohrzucker)
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1 cup Guinness Stout
• 1/2 cup dark Amaribe cocoa
• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup sour cream at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 175° C (fan assistet) and line two muffin tins with paper liners. Cream the butter in a bowl and gradually add the sugars. Beat well until no sugar crystalls remain, then beat in the eggs one after the other at low speed. Let the stout drip in while mixing (and don’t let it drip on your whisk). Mix the cocoa, flour, salt and baking powder, sift into the bowl and fold in. Then add the sour cream and stir to blend. I use an icecream scoop to fill the paper liners and use 2 scoops per cupcake. Transfer your cupcakes to the oven directly and bake for 15-18 minutes. Let them sit in the pan for another few minutes before you put them on a whire rack to cool completly.

Whisky Ganache Filling:

• 225 g chocolate (I used milk and dark chocolate in even parts)
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 20 g butter
• 4 tbsp Irish Whiskey (I used Bushmills 10y single malt)

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place in a heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to boil in a pot and pour over the chocolate. Let it sit for a minute and then stir with a rubber spatula to combine from inside out. Then add the butter and whiskey and stir until completely incorperated. Let the ganache cool until thick enough to fill the cupcakes. Then prepare the cupcakes: I use a cupcake corer to cut out the center of the cupcake. You can also use a round cookie cutter or the bottom of a large decorating tip (see the browneyed bakers recipe for pictures it’s all explained well there). Then use a piping bag or a dough dispenser to fill the ganache into the holes of the cupcake.

Baileys Buttercream Frosting:

• 300 g butter at room temperature (I recommend Irish Butter such as Kerrygold for this)
• 2 cups confectioners sugar
• 4 tbsp Baileys Irish cream (or homemade)

Cream the butter (I use the flex edge beater of my Kitchen Aid Mixer, you can also use a normal whisk) and make sure you scrape it down from the sides of the bowl. Sift the sugar and add spponwise while mixing at low speed until all of it is incorporated. Then add the Baileys (make sure not to drip it on the whisk) and increase the speed to medium-high for another 2 minutes. I add 10 drops of green food colouring and mix for another minute, you may need more if you want it dark green. Then I use a star nozzle to pipe shamrocks on top of my cupcakes: start with a small c from the center of the cupcake and close the c back in the center, repeat this twice so you get three leaves of the shamrock and finish with a small stipe that you pipe from the bottom to the center of the cupcake. Et voilá the perfect Paddys Day Cupcake!