Brilliant! Cupcake's the bomb

It's the dessert version of a drink with a politically incorrect name.

It's a good use for leftover Guinness and the dregs of your Bailey's and Jameson's bottles.

And the Irish Car Bomb Cupcake is, apparently, the bomb this St. Patrick's Day.

Though it hasn't cropped up much in local bakery cases, it started to emerge en masse on home-cooking blogs last year. “Car bomb cupcake” now gets more than 134,000 hits on Google. And at least one local baker said she planned to offer a version this week.

The drink, said to have been invented by a Connecticut bartender in 1979 and seen on drink menus for decades, involves a half shot each of whiskey and Irish cream liqueur, dropped into a partly full pint of Guinness stout. The “bomb” refers to the dropping of the shot glass into the beer glass, the foaming over that follows when the cream meets the carbonation, and the need to slam the whole drink quickly to avoid a big mess.

The cupcake skips the foaming-over business and adds a good bit of chocolate to the mix. The Guinness goes into a rich chocolate cake batter. The baked cupcakes get filled with a chocolate-whiskey ganache. And the frosting gets a dribble of Irish cream liqueur in lieu of milk or cream.

While ordering the drink might offend your barkeep and others, serving the rich, slightly boozy cupcake (perhaps with a different name) might well win you some new friends.

We tested recipes for both. Oh, the drudgery. :)

* * *

Irish Car Bomb, the drink

¾ pint Guinness or other stout, chilled

½ ounce Bailey's or other Irish cream liqueur

½ ounce Jameson's or other Irish whiskey

Pour the stout into a pint-sized or bigger glass. Let foam settle.

Pour the whiskey, followed by the Bailey's, into a shot glass. The whiskey will rise to the top.

Drop the shot glass's contents into the pint glass and chug quickly, before it foams over and curdles.

Alternately, sip the shot and follow with the Guinness.

— Adapted from www.irishcarbomb.com

* * *

Irish Car Bomb, the cupcake

For the Cupcakes

1 cup Guinness (or other stout beer)

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter

¾ cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1½ teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2/3 cup (or 1 8-ounce container) sour cream

For the filling

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup heavy cream

1 pinch sea salt

2 teaspoons Irish whiskey, such as Jameson's

For the frosting

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 to 4 cups powdered sugar

3 to 4 tablespoons Bailey's or other Irish cream liqueur

Sprinkles for garnish

Make the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray or line 24 cupcake cups. Warm the stout and the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and bring just to simmer. Remove from heat. Add the cocoa and whisk until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. With an electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl. Add a little of the stout-chocolate mixture to the egg-sour-cream mixture and blend to warm the eggs slightly before mixing in the rest of the stout-chocolate mixture. Add the flour mixture in three parts, mixing gently after each, until combined.

Divide batter among cupcake cups, filling 2/3 to ¾ full.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center cupcake comes out clean, about 17 to 23 minutes, depending on how full your cups are and how dark your pans. Mine, cooked in nonstick pans, took the full 23 minutes. Carefully remove from pans and let cool fully on a rack.

Make the filling: Put the chocolate in a small heat- and microwave-proof bowl or Pyrex container. Heat the cream to a simmer and pour over the chocolate. Let set for 1 minute, then stir until the mixture is smooth. (If you still have chocolate chunks, heat the mixture a little more over a pan of simmering water or in short bursts in the microwave.) Add the butter, salt and whiskey and stir until combined. Let cool until thick but still soft enough for piping. Transfer to a zip-top bag.

Fill the cupcakes: Use a 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple-corer or to cut and scoop out the center of each cupcake. Retain these knobs of cake. Cut off one corner of the zip-top bag and pipe filling into each cupcake. Top each cupcake with a knob of the removed cake.

Make the frosting: Put the butter in a medium-sized bowl, and with an electric or stand mixer, whip until it is light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar, a little at a time, and continue mixing. When it starts to clump, add Bailey's and mix until smooth. Adjust with more powdered sugar or Bailey's as needed. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe concentric rings of stars on the tops of each cupcake. Top with green sprinkles.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

— Adapted from a version that New York-based writer Deb Perelman developed for her Smitten Kitchen blog, smittenkitchen.com

Contact the writer:
444-1069, nichole.aksamit@owh.com

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