Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes - Chocolate Guinness cake filled with Nutella, Marscapone, Irish Cream, & Whiskey

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This recipe was inspired by my filled cupcake passion. After spending some time with beer brewers, I wanted to come up with a cupcake that would please them as well as allow my creative culinary thinking cap some fun. This Irish Car Bomb Cupcake is a chocolate Guinness cake filled with a mascarpone, chocolate hazelnut, Irish cream, and whiskey blend topped with fresh whipped cream. I spent many hours contemplating the filling of this cupcake. The chocolate hazelnut was to compliment the chocolate cake and to give the cake another dimension. I added mascarpone cheese to it to give it a sinfully rich texture. The Irish Cream and the Whiskey are essential to the Irish Car Bomb. I decided to use a very simple and plain whipped topping with Bailey's to not take away from the flavors of the cake and filling. Additionally, the recipe for the Guinness cake is not my own. It is a popular recipe from Bon Appetite (2002) that was easily adapted to cupcakes. Enjoy!

Makes about 32-34 cupcakes.

Hardware:

Mixer (I Heart my kitchen aid)
Whisk
Piping tips (Bismark 230 and your choice for decorating, I used the Star tip 21) and piping bags.
Melon baller if you choose to scoop your cupcakes instead of fill them.
Cupcake liners, foil preferably. Paper is fine too, but the cake is a bit greasy.
Cupcake pans
A bunch of spatulas, forks, and spoons

Software:

Cake

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cups (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (I used raw cacao)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cups sour cream or vanilla yogurt

Filling

5 oz mascarpone cheese
6 oz nutella
2 oz whiskey (more really, as much as you want.)

Whipped Cream

16 oz heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup of powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup of Irish Cream (to taste)

Preparation

For cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Drink the rest of the stout or use it to make Irish Black and Tan Mac and Cheese. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Allow to cool. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream/yogurt in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate-butter mixture to egg mixture slowly and beat just to combine. Make sure that the stout-chocolate-butter combo has cooled so that it does not curdle and cook the eggs when you add it. It is preferable to stream it slowly into the eggs to temper them. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Fill cupcake molds halfway and bake for 15-18 minutes. The tops should be springy to the touch. Allow to cool completely.

Filling:

Combine the mascarpone, Nutella, and whiskey in a bowl with a fork. Mix until smooth. Add more whiskey if you like a stronger whiskey flavor. Do not refrigerate. You want this to be at room temperature for piping into the cupcakes. Once at room temperature, it should have the consistency of a pudding or batter. If it is too thick, add more whiskey. If it is too thin, add some nutella or mascarpone. It should be gooey when you cut open a cupcake at room temperature.

Whipped Cream:

Combine all ingredients into a large bowl and mix with the whisk attachment. I started out with 4 oz of Irish cream, but upped it to about 1/2 of a cup. Use the Irish Cream to taste. This mixture should be beaten until stiff peaks form. It may take anywhere from 10-20 minutes depending on your mixer's speed. Be careful not to over beat as it could break and turn into butter and buttermilk. Once stiff peaks have formed, place this into the fridge to keep cold.

Assembling once cupcakes are cooled:

Option 1: Load a piping bag with bismark 230 tip with the filling. Read here for more detailed instructions. You should be able to get all the filling into a single bag. Insert tip into each cupcake 1 inch and squeeze bag. You may see the cupcake visibly rise as it is filled. Pull out the tip when it looks like the cupcake is inflated. You can add additional filling by poking another hole in the cupcake and filling another portion of the cake. Move onto the next cupcake. Eat the left over filling.

Option 2: Using a melon baller, dig out a hole in each cupcake. Spoon filing into each hole. Eat the cake holes. Eat the left over filling.

Once cupcakes are filled, you can use use a spoon and knife to spoon on the whipped cream topping. Or you can use a piping tip and bag to decorate your cupcakes. You may choose to sprinkle with shaved chocolate or cinnamon, but there are more than enough flavors going on.

Guinness and Butter

Freshly Baked Cupcakes

Filled cupcakes.

Decorated

Irish Car Bomb Cupcake time

Yummy time!

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