Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting

So. Really, these are Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Bailey’s Irish Cream Cream-Cheese frosting filled with Pastry Cream…but that was way too long to include in the title haha.

These came to be because my sisters Caroline and Amy kept on expressing their cravings for chocolate cupcakes over the Christmas holiday. I was able to have these cupcakes incorporate a couple of ingredients that were leftover from other projects.

Me and the sisters on Christmas morning!

I had made Amy a birthday cake when all of my family came into town that was filled with pastry cream, so I had some of that leftover…and I had also made Bailey’s Irish Cream truffles, so I had a bit of extra spiked ganache that needed to be used. I decided to play to my sisters’ desires for cupcakes by making chocolate cakes filled with the pastry cream, and then turn the truffle ganache into a cream cheese frosting.

I have to say, I am not one to jump for cupcakes (I honestly don’t love cake in general…I’d rather have pie hehe), but these were pretty darn tasty! Definitely insanely decadent. The frosting was my favorite part. I have been enjoying hot chocolate with Bailey’s recently since I turned 21, so incorporating it into a frosting was super fun and yummy. So here we go. I got the recipe for the cupcakes from a blog I have been following, A Cup of Marscapone and I came up with the frosting based on how much ganache I had left over.

Cupcakes:

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk (I used fat free)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup hot brewed coffee (you can use boiling water instead, but I recommend the coffee for taste!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your cupcake pans with papers. In the bowl of a standmixer, stir together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, bakings soda and powder and salt. Add the eggs, oil and vanilla and beat on low to medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add in the milk, and mix on low until incorporated. Then the coffee and do the same.

Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula to make sure everything is mixed in. Fill your cupcake tins about 3/4 or 2/3 full, and bake for 22-25 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

While the cupcakes are cooling, make your frosting!

Bailey’s Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 ounces cream cheese, room temp
3 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup chocolate Bailey’s ganache (which I made from this recipe– if you want to avoid the extra step, just omit the ganache and do 1 cup of cocoa powder with a few tablespoons of Bailey’s, increase the butter to 5 or 6 tbsp, and increase the powdered sugar to get the same affect as the ganache)
1/2 cup powdered sugar, SIFTED (do the extra step of sifting to avoid lumpy frosting…which I didn’t, and regretted slightly)

In the bowl of a standmixer, beat together the cream cheese and butter until it is fluffy and smooth. Then add the cocoa powder, ganache, and powdered sugar and be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go. Once everything is in, taste it to see if you may want to add more Bailey’s. I believe I ended up adding another tablespoon or two to kick up the flavor, but it’s always better to start with less and add more if you like.

I made the pastry cream from the recipe we used at my bakery that I worked at this past summer, but you can find easy but delicious recipes online. Here’s one that I haven’t tried, but looks pretty similar to the one I use: Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream

Using a round decorating tip (or a cupcake corer which are super fun! I used it for my Pumpkin muffins- I left mine at my brother’s house in storage so I had to settle for the tip removal approach), remove the middle of the cupcakes to be able to fill them.

Tea and a cupcake for breakfast!