The Amateur Foodies: Baileys Irish Cream Cupcakes

We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day with this amazingly tasty cupcakes. These are not for children! They do contain alcohol in the cupcake, and the icing. You can substitute the liquor with Baileys Irish Cream coffee creamer.

We got this recipe from the Tasty Kitchen blog. The original recipe is for mini cupcakes, but we wanted regular size cupcakes. These cupcakes are ridiculously tasty. They'd be great for a bridal shower, or a Tuesday. There's always an occasion for cupcakes.

Here's what you need:
Cupcakes:
1 1/4 cup boiling water
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup Baileys Irish Cream
1 cup sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Buttercream Frosting:
1 1/2 sticks of butter, softened
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
2 Tbsp Baileys Irish Cream
Dark Chocolate to shave over the top

Here's what you do:
Start by boiling the water for the cupcakes.

Measure out your cocoa in a medium bowl and pour the boiling water over it.

Whisk until smooth.

Place in the refrigerator until completely cool. Once cooled, add the Bailey's to the mix and whisk to combine.

Combine the salt, butter and vanilla in a mixing bowl.

Cream together for a couple minutes until smooth.

Add the eggs one at a time and allow them to combine.

In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Add half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

Next, pour in the cooled cocoa/Baileys mixture.

Add the other half of the flour mixture. Make sure all the flour from the edge of the bowl gets combined.

Pour the batter into your cupcake wrappers, stopping about 1/4" from the top. They're going to need room to rise.

Pop in the oven for 12-15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for a couple minutes.

Then, remove to a wire rack to let them cool completely.

Alright, while your cupcakes are cooling, go ahead and mix up the icing.

I used the whisk attachment on my stand mixer for this, to make the icing nice and fluffy. Start by combining the softened butter, nutmeg and cinnamon and beating together for a couple of minutes on medium speed.

Reduce the speed on your mixer and add in the powdered sugar.

Turn the speed back up to medium and let that combine until smooth.

Add in the Baileys and beat for a couple more minutes until nice and fluffy and airy.

If you own a pastry bag, this is where you want to use it. If you don't (like me), snip off the corner of a Ziploc bag and slide a decorating attachment in.