St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes

Photo by Katie Kay

I love holiday baking.  Christmas is my favorite, but I'll take any holiday and turn it into a kitchen event.  I've tried a few St. Patrick's Day desserts in the past, with only a small amount of success.  In my humble opinion (and I hope I don't offend anyone) cupcakes made with Guinness are dry.  This year I gave my darling Bailey's a turn in the spotlight, and she didn't let me down.  Nor did her gentleman friend, Jameson.
I found 2 cupcake recipes I wanted to try--thanks Pinterest!  Also--based loosely on every single frosting recipe I found--I made my own Bailey's Buttercream and a Jameson Irish Whiskey Buttercream.  I frosted half of each batch with each kind of frosting, and there was a clear winner in each category.

Photo by Katie Kay

For my non-chocolate cupcake, I tried Erica's recipe at Erica's Sweet Tooth.  With the Bailey's and the cinnamon, it sounded fantastic!  My batter was VERY thick (no, I didn't over-work it) and the cupcakes were incredibly dense and a little too dry.  After these results, I checked her reviews.  She gets a lot of flattery for how great they look, but there were several people who had problems with dense and dry cupcakes.  I'll have to agree with them.

Photo by Katie Kay

I had MUCH more success with Jennie's Chocolate Bailey's Cupcakes at The Messy Baker.  The cupcake batter was a normal, cake-batter consistency.  These cupcakes domed beautifully and these lovely ladies were moist and tasty.  
The best part of all of these cupcakes was the frosting.  As I mentioned, I made 2 buttercream frostings using Bailey's in one and Jameson in the other.  I worried that the whiskey would be too over-powering, but the Jameson frosting was our favorite!  The Bailey's had a beige, caramel tint to it, and the Jameson was much whiter and brighter.  This made the Jameson cupcakes look a little prettier, too.

Can you tell which is Jameson and which is Bailey's?

Chocolate Bailey's Cupcakes with Jameson Irish Whiskey Buttercream Slightly adapted from Jennie at The Messy Baker
1 cup boiling water 3/4 cup cocoa powder 1/2 cup Bailey's Irish Cream 1 cup sugar 6 Tbsp butter, softened 2 tsp vanilla 2 eggs 1 2/3 cups flour 1 tsp baking soda 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt
Combine boiling water and cocoa powder in a small bowl; whisk to combine and set aside to cool.  I put mine on a bed of ice to hurry cooling process.
In a mixer, combine sugar and butter.  Mix until light and fluffy, then add vanilla.  Combine, then add eggs one at a time, incorporating into batter each time.
In a separate bowl, combine remaining dry ingredients.  
Add Bailey's to liquid cocoa mixture.
Add half of your flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture.  Add your cocoa/Bailey's mixture SLOWLY until combined.  I had to drizzle this because it was very liquidy and my paddle splashed the cocoa liquid all over the place.  Add remaining flour and scrape sides of bowl.  Mix until just combined.
Pour batter into baking cups and bake at 350 for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  (crumbs are fine, liquid batter is not)
Cool before frosting.
Jameson Irish Whiskey Buttercream by Katie Kay
2 sticks of butter, softened 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar 2 tsp vanilla 3 Tbsp Jameson Irish Whiskey
Beat butter in mixer and slowly add powdered sugar.  Add vanilla; combine.  Add Jameson; combine.  Adjust powdered sugar and Jameson to taste.
Bailey's Irish Buttercream by Katie Kay
Same as above, but substitute Bailey's for Jameson.