Somewhat similarly, I rarely, if ever, make corned beef and cabbage for St Pat's. I love corned beef, and also cabbage. This year, I'm going bananas. Hemplers corned beef, colcannon made with our own 2011 potatoes, and Mssrs Jameson and Bushmill in the house (this last isn't terribly unusal, other than the simultaneous residence). Plus, black bottom cupcakes made with Guinness, recipe courtesy of Sweet & Stout, a Spokane-based center of beer-and-cupcake-flavored Awesome.
They suggested an irish cream frosting, but I decided to put some Bushmills and vanilla straight into the cream cheese top half. I do believe I likey.
Guinness Black Bottom Cupcakes
adapted from Sweet and Stout
makes 12+ cupcakes
-Preheat oven to 350F.Top Ingredients:
8 oz Cream Cheese, softened
1/3 cup Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1 Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla
2 T Irish Whiskey
-Cream cream cheese, sugar and salt together. Add egg, blend well. Add vanilla and whiskey, make it all nice and nice and smooth. Don't blend everything together at once, like I did, against my better judgement: the cream cheese will be slightly lumpy, no matter the beating you subject it to.
-Set aside.
Bottom Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Flour
1/4 cup Cocoa
1 tsp Baking Soda
-Whisk together in a large bowl.
1 stick Butter, melted
1 cup Stout Beer
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Vinegar, white or cider
-Whisk together in a small bowl.
-Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and stir until just combined.
-In lined muffin tins, put the bottom blend, and top with top blend. Swirl if you like, or allow them to crack themselves up in the oven.
-Bake at 350F for 18-22 minutes.
note: I had plenty of batter, and if I were a different person, I could have stretched this into another 6 cupcakes.
Slainte!
I have mentioned how I am not a food photographer, right?
*This lack of greenness never bothered me from a point of 'genuine' Irishness either: while the wearing of the green is far more traditional than green budweiser, they both usually carry about the same depth of meaning, here. Once you get into genuine Irishness, well, it's a church holiday. Then I back off again and enjoy drinking some whiskey and listening to some tunes: