Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

A few weeks ago I was looking through some blogs that I follow and I found that Jessica was hosting this little thing called a Bake-n-Blog.

What is a Bake-n-Blog you ask?? Well, let me tell you. Jessica challenged her readers to pick a cupcake from a site called Ming Makes Cupcakes (there are currently 33 cupcake options on this site). Each reader would choose a cupcake, make it and blog about it on the due date (today) and link up on Jessica's site.

I automatically thought of The Jane Austen Book Club and how each member read one of Jane Austen's books and reported back to the others about the storyline and so on.

And naturally, me being both a reader (though that really has nothing to do with this challenge) and a baker, I decided to play along.

I chose cupcake number 24, a chocolate coffee cupcake with a Bailey's Irish Cream frosting. And my oh my was I happy with my choice! When I tried the cupcake with the frosting I pretty much foodgasmed. There is absolutely no other way to describe my reaction upon that first bite. Remember that cafe scene on When Harry Met Sally? Yeah. That could have been me when I took that first bite.

I ended up making 2 batches of these cupcakes for two reasons: 1) one batch only makes 12 cupcakes and I needed to feed at least 16 people, and 2) I forgot the vanilla in the first batch - D'oh!

The cupcakes without the vanilla were still really good. But with the vanilla. Oh yes, with the vanilla... ::insert movie scene here::

One more thing. I made 2 batches of the cupcakes but only needed one batch of the frosting so when you make these, either double the cupcake recipe or halve the frosting recipe.

Ready to get started?? Good! Here we go:

Ingredients for the cupcakes: all purpose flour, sugar, VANILLA, butter, salt, baking soda, cocoa powder, eggs, coffee.

And the recipe calls for buttermilk. But I didn't have buttermilk so I made my own. Here's how. Take some whole milk and white vinegar.

You need 1/4 cup of buttermilk so pour your milk almost to the 1/4 line.

Then pour in the vinegar until you reach the line (I went a bit over but that's okay). Now set it aside and leave it alone for about 5 minutes. We are going to do the other stuff while that sets.

Toss your butter in a small saucepan stirring until it melts (sorry for the really bright picture!).

When the butter is melted, toss in your cocoa powder.

Whisk all that cocoa in the butter until everything is nice and smooth.

Then whisk in the coffee and set that aside.

Sift your flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl and set that aside.

By now our "buttermilk" should have had enough time to set so go ahead and stir it up.

Then stir in the baking soda until it is dissolved.

At this point it's time to add the chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix it until well combined.

Then add your eggs, one at a time, mixing well in between each addition.

Now mix in the buttermilk....

And trying hard not to forget this crucial step, add the vanilla. Go ahead, point, laugh and snicker at me because this picture was taken during the second batch. Go ahead...get it out of your system. Okay. Done? Ready to move on? Good.

Now, pour the batter into cupcake paper line muffin tins.

And bake in a 350 degree F oven for about 20 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.

Then take them out of the pan and let them cool on the rack completely.

Yay! Now it's time for the frosting. You will need Bailey's, confectioner's sugar, butter, milk, vanilla and coffee.

This is pretty easy, just throw everything into the mixer and mix it up until smooth.

Now frost the cupcakes!

And because you can't send anything into class with The Hubble without trying it first, go ahead and grab one (with vanilla).

Unwrap it...

And try not to embarrass yourself when you taste it. Enjoy!


Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting
Retrieved from Ming Makes Cupcakes

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Ingrediets:

For the cupcakes:

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup buttermilk; room temperature (or use whole milk with a bit of white vinegar)
• 3 heaping Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup coffee
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the frosting:

• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 4 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1/4 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 Tablespoon milk
• 2 Tablespoons Coffee

Directions:

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in buttermilk.
3. In a small saucepan, melt butter and cocoa powder together at a low temperature. When smooth, whisk in coffee.
4. In separate bowl, sift together flour, sugar and salt.
5. Add cocoa mixture and egg; mix at low speed.
6. Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla; mix until well combined.
7. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until tester inserted in center of cupcakes comes out clean.
8. Cool on wire rack in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely on wire rack.

For the frosting:

1. Beat ingredients until smooth; spread on cupcakes.