St. Patrick’s Day Pot o’ Gold Rainbow Cupcakes

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IMG_5601_2These cupcakes were a long time in the making. Last year I bought the makings for some rainbow cupcakes for a baby shower but never ended up making them. I didn’t want the candy to go to waste though, so I kept it in the back of my mind to find a good time to use them. Rainbow cupcakes would be good at any time, but I wanted it to be the right time, the right situation.

Then St. Patrick’s Day came around this year and it hit me: Now is the time! Rainbows are a great motif of St. Patrick’s Day and the beginning of spring, so I modified my idea and added little candy pots of gold to more fit the theme of St. Patrick’s Day.

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These cupcakes were fun to make because they’re covered in candy! I got inspiration for these cupcakes from Babble.com. For the decor, you’re going to need Airheads Xtremes Rainbow Berry Sour Candy strips, Rolos, gold sparkle gel, gold sugar sprinkles, green jimmies, green frosting dye, and white frosting. I used Just A Pinch’s Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting Recipe for the frosting.

Make a batch of cupcakes in whatever flavor you want. I chose to make chocolate cupcakes (recipe here) so the cake was the “dirt” under the grass. If you use my mom’s chocolate cake recipe, follow the recipe exactly, except cook the cupcakes for only 20-25 minutes, otherwise they’ll be overcooked.

IMG_5589While the cupcakes cooled, I made the pots o’ gold using the Rolos, the sparkle gel, and gold sugar sprinkles. Flip the Rolos upside down, add a glob of sparkle gel to the center, leaving the edges untouched, and sprinkle some gold sugar on top. Now you’ve got a treasury full of gold waiting to be placed at the end of the rainbow!

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Make your frosting next and color about half of it green. I did the green in batches because I didn’t want to make too much green and not have enough white frosting left over, but half green/half white should work out. If you want to be cautious, make a little green at a time until you’ve frosted the tops of all the cupcakes. Thin frosting is just fine for this project. Sprinkle the green jimmies on top of all the freshly frosted cupcakes for the grass. You might need to push them into the frosting to make them stick better.

IMG_5595Next cut the rainbow candy strips in half. This will give you 24 rainbows, just enough to cover 2 dozen cupcakes. If you end up with more cupcakes or need more than 24, you’ll need to buy a second package of the rainbow candy.

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With your left over white frosting placed in a frosting bag or zip lock fitted with a Wilton #12 tip, pipe small puffy clouds on two sides of each cupcake. Then stick each end of a rainbow strip into the clouds. Lastly, use a dot of sparkle gel to the side of one cloud to attach a pot o’ gold.

One last thing I will leave you with. Make sure these cupcakes don’t get too warm or they will get a bit droopy, as seen below:

IMG_0833I hope these cupcakes bring you luck this St. Patrick’s Day!

***Update: I included a link to where my inspriation for this cupcake originated.***
 
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Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Whiskey Ganache Filling and Irish Cream Frosting

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I love the combination of the ingredients in the unfortunately named alcoholic drink the Irish Car Bomb. It includes Guinness Stout, Jameson Irish Whiskey, and Baileys Irish Cream liqueur. It’s called Irish because of the Irish alcohols used in the drink, but the drink originated in America. The “car bomb” part of the name in part refers to the shot of Baileys with whiskey floated on top, being dropped or “bombed” into a glass of Guinness, but also to the history of car bombs that have plagued Ireland in years past.

Many find the name offensive, but that’s the point isn’t it? Alcoholic drinks are named outrageous things so that people remember them, for example: Agent Orange, Kamikaze, Redheaded Slut. Alcoholic drinks tend to be offensive. That’s just how it is. I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to bake! So let’s get to it!

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I used Brown Eyed Baker’s “Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes” recipe to make these but changed a few things about the recipe to suit my own needs. First, I decided not to call what I made Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, mainly because I chose to use Carolans Irish Cream instead of Baileys and many would not consider it a true “Irish Car Bomb” without the holy trinity of Guinness, Jameson, and Baileys. For the purposes of this recipe, Carolans Irish Cream works just as well for the frosting, but if you want the more authentic taste of Baileys, I’d suggest using the exact recipe from Brown Eyed Baker.

IMG_2988The other thing I decided to try was splitting the batter into two, making one half as Brown Eyed Baker did, and the other with dairy substitutes for the heavy cream and sour cream. They aren’t completely vegan, but my boyfriend prefers less dairy in his diet, and I wanted him to be able to eat these too! Plus he helped me make these, so it was only fair to make something he could eat.

For the less dairy version of these cupcakes, I used almond milk in place of the heavy cream, and vegan sour cream instead of regular sour cream. The vegan sour cream didn’t quite taste like real sour cream, but since it was mixed into the batter, the taste didn’t matter much and it moistened the cake just like the regular sour cream did.

Amazingly, the alternative batter cooked up better than the regular batter. The less-dairy cake cooked faster and rose better than the regular cake. I had to cook the regular cupcakes longer than what the recipe suggested. Not sure what I did wrong with Brown Eyed Baker’s recipe. Also, the almond milk ganache thickened quicker than the heavy cream one (which is good). It was interesting how different the two batters worked out.

IMG_2976Taste wise, the cupcakes were about the same. You’d never miss the dairy products that I cut out of the alternative cupcakes. I could taste the Guinness in the cake as well as the whiskey in the ganache. I would have liked more of a whiskey flavor though. You might want to add a little more whiskey to the ganache if you like the flavor. The frosting was a little sweet for my tastes on its own, but the bittersweet ganache counteracts the sweet well when it’s eaten all together.

Speaking of the frosting, the recipe calls for 2 cups of butter! That’s a crazy amount. One reason my frosting might have been too sweet is because I chose to use less butter but only cut the powdered sugar buy one cup. Therefore, I might have used too much powdered sugar for the amount of butter. If you cut the butter down, make sure to proportionally cut the confectioner’s sugar too, or it could end up too sweet like mine (unless you like really sweet frosting).

IMG_2989These cupcakes are really rich and boozy: a perfect way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Although the recipe says they only take one hour to make, I highly doubt anyone could finish these in an hour unless you are a quick professional baker. They took me several hours to prepare, mix, bake, and frost, and that was with help! Doing these on my own would have been difficult. I’d suggest making these with a friend, and then drink the extra alcohol while you’re waiting for them to cook. 😉 Keep in mind that these cupcakes do have a slight alcohol content, because the ganache and frosting do not have the alcohol cooked out of them. They are not for those under the legal drinking age.

Have a fun and safe St. Patrick’s Day and drink (and eat) responsibly!

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