I Was a Patsy

Yes, that's a Barney sweatshirt. Don't judge me.

When I was a child, I dreamed of owning an Easy Bake Oven. At the time, nothing was more magical to me than a small box with a light bulb inside. Miniature cakes, tiny cookies, the possibilities were endless for a toddler with a well-developed sweet tooth. Christmas of 1992, my parents decided to give 4-year-old me the little plastic deathtrap and I've been baking (and burning myself) ever since.

At 25, nothing is more magical to me than a large box with a light bulb inside. Of course, there are heating coils and actual functioning buttons on this box, but the point remains the same: my favorite toy has been, and always will be, my oven. But I don't want there to be any misconceptions, I am nowhere near a baking expert. I am self-taught and have never had any sort of formal instruction (and that becomes painfully obvious at times). It's pretty much guaranteed that I'll end up with flour crusted to my clothing and literal egg on my face. But that's mainly why I started this blog. My recipes aren't particularly interesting, but my exploits always seem to garner laughs. I aim to entertain, not educate. I want you to laugh with me, even though I may not always be laughing.

Now that I've told you the story of my life (slightly embarrassing photo included), I can fast forward 21 years. There I am in all my pasty glory. That handsome man to my left is my beau, Kyle. We have a lot of things in common: we like the same type of music, we like to binge watch television sitcoms on Netflix, and we always have a snarky comment or pun for every occasion. We even have similar names (you can't spell Kelly without Kyle.. and an another L). We have a lot in common, except for our taste in beverages.

Team K: Kyle and Kelly.

A few months ago, I mentioned to him that my cooking skills are virtually nonexistent, but my saving grace is that I could bake a decent cupcake. He asked me to make him "an adult pastry" (and after asking "in flavor.. or shape?") I knew exactly what to make. Like any typical (half) Irish dude, he has an affinity for whiskey. I don't drink, but I'm a terrible enabler, especially when it involves sugar. Therefore, it only made sense to make an Irish Car Bomb cupcake. What better way to appeal to someone than to offend his heritage? Luckily my guy is not one of delicate sensibilities. Plus I'm pretty sure he zoned out into euphoria after he heard me say "it has a whiskey.." If he had been listening to my entire spiel, he would have heard me say "it's a Guinness chocolate cupcake with a Jameson chocolate ganache filling, and it's topped with Baileys vanilla buttercream."

The cored cupcakes.

Let the games begin
As always, I started with the cake. I already had all of the ingredients on hand except for the Guinness, which is apparently a pretty important ingredient in a Guinness cake. Who would have thought? I made it my mission to purchase as little booze as possible, but much like my cooking endeavors, nothing ever turns out. I searched high and low (which was really only a Lucky and a Bevmo before I gave up), but I could only find the beer in four packs. It was especially unfortunate when I got home and decided to take a swig of the swill before pouring it into my mixing bowl. It's been a few months, so I can't remember my exact reaction, but what I can recall is that I said something along the lines of "people actually drink this?" I don't know why anyone would want to drink one can, let alone four. Must be a marketing ploy. Luckily, if you leave beer in the refrigerator for long enough, it magically disappears. Funny how that works. I will say that the cakes did not taste like beer after coming out of the oven. Thank the confectionary gods for that.

The following day, I made the ganache. I probably should have started with this instead of the cakes since it needed some serious refrigeration time to turn from chocolate whiskey soup into a decadent pudding. I would say this is pertinent information for next time, but I rarely ever bake something more than once, so, uh.. "the more you know," I guess.

Drinking on the job, for shame.

For this undertaking, I enlisted the help of my baking assistant, Giraffe Whisk(ey. Sorry, I couldn't resist). He was helpful for all of five minutes, then he got into the Jameson, and productivity took a nosedive. I quickly banished him to the sink or else I wouldn't have any whiskey left for the filling. The recipe I used had your standard ganache staples: one cup of chocolate chips and one cup of heavy whipping cream, as well as two tablespoons of Jameson. After combining all the ingredients, I took a sample and determined that it tasted great. As I previously mentioned, I don't drink. I dislike the bitter flavors of alcohol, so if I thought it was fine, there wasn't enough whiskey. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I dumped the entire bottle in the bowl of chocolate. The ganache now had a bitter edge that I didn't quite appreciate, and I knew instantly it was perfect. The recipe said the mixture would set up in 30 minutes, so I popped the bowl into the refrigerator and started working on the frosting. I checked back half an hour later to discover the ganache was still soupy. Adding eight times more booze than I was supposed to may have had something to do with that. Possibly. We can never be sure.

The finished product, ready for consumption.

It took a few hours, but eventually the ganache did firm up nicely. Luckily the frosting didn't give me any trouble (other than making it rain powdered sugar when I turned on my mixer. Happens every single time). The process of making the cupcake topping was relatively simple. My go-to is a basic buttercream (butter, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla), so I just substituted the vanilla and milk for Baileys. I'm not going to lie, I could eat the frosting just by itself. And I did.

For some reason, I always underestimate the amount of powdered sugar I need to make the appropriate amount of frosting. The recipe says two cups, but after two cups the frosting still tastes like straight butter. I probably end up using about four cups, which might explain why I end up with a giant tub of frosting just for 12 measly cupcakes. The obvious answer is to cut back the amount of butter, but that's too easy. Because I never learn, there's a Ziplock bag full of this delicious concoction sitting in my refrigerator still, but I'm okay with that. Soon, frosting, soon.