cupcakes | Just Living Life

I may not be Irish, but you do know that St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner. And sometimes you just have to go with the flow and make something creative for a holiday known for certain foods, such as corned beef and cabbage, green beer, Guiness, etc.

Well I do not like green beer. I don’t really like beer, but I have been known to drink it on occasions. Which is another story.

Corned beef and cabbage? I’m not much of a fan. And I know I probably wouldn’t do a very good job at making it, so that’s a bit much, as far as I’m concerned. Besides, there’s a restaurant we go to every year so my husband can have it, and since they have other items on the menu that I like, I’m fine with that.

But I figured there had to be something out there I could make for the occasion. But it really had to be something I’d enjoy. Since I enjoy baking, I thought I’d see if I could find some Irish cookies or something. But all I found were cut-out cookies of shamrocks which also required their being frosted. Even though the frosting had Irish whiskey in it, I knew they were well past my talents, which doesn’t lend itself well to either frosting cookies OR icing a cake.

Even if I were going to serve them with Irish coffee, which I do like, it really wouldn’t be my best experience. I do know my limitations.

But then I found a recipe that didn’t look too hard, even though it did require using my inadequate frosting skills. But maybe my husband and my best friend could overlook what they looked like, as long as they tasted good. The grandkids don’t need to try these!

So here’s what I’m going to try this weekend. They look fairly easy, and somehow I can probably figure out a way to do the frosting, although I can assure you they won’t look like the picture I found of them. I do have some St. Patricl’s cupcake wrappers, though.

Then again, it’s worth a try. If they aren’t really presentable, I can always blame it on the Irish coffee or the sip or two of Bailey’s I may have while I’m making them!

So here’s the recipe for Chocolate Guiness Cupcakes. Wish me luck!

1 1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
i cup Irish stout beer (Guiness preferably) at room termperature
1 tbl vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking pwder
1/4 tsp salt
1 2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 3-4 mini-muffin tins or cups with paper liners. (I think I’d do regular size and just adjust the baking time.) This says it makes 66 mini cupcakes! That’s a lot!

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk til smooth. Stir in beer and vanilla. Reomve from heat and allow to cool.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and sift into a large bowl. Mix in sugar. Add beer mixture and stir til thoroughly combined. Add eggs, stirring until well incorporated. Spoon into prepared muffin cups, each about 3/4 full.

Bake in preheated over until tops spring back when lightly pressed (10-11 mniutes (for mini’s; check while cooking for regular sizes). Cool in muffin pans for 5 minutes and transfer to wire rack to cool, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile make the frosting.:

1 1/2 cup butter, softened
3 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream

To prepare, beat buter and confectioners sugar in a bowl with electric mixer. Add the Baileys,, a tablespoon at a time, and beat until light and fluffy, and white, in color, about ten minutes. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting.

There are so many different styles and types and flavors of wedding cakes being used today….where do you start?

Traditionally a lot of couples still use the traditional almond flavoring, but trending today….anything goes. Just like the styles of cakes. It’s hard to say what you’ll find at any wedding you attend!

One of the most favorite parts of wedding planning for most couples, and for wedding planners, is making sure the food is perfect for the bridal couple as well as the guests.

And the most important part in that is making sure the wedding cake is exactly what the bride and groom envision…both in style and design AND flavor! Most of the couples we’ve worked with, including my daughter and future son-in-law were adamant about the flavor!

And how to be sure you’re going to like it can’t be assured unless you go cake tasting! It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it, as the saying goes!

Not only do the style and design and colors on the cake have to be perfect, but it has to taste good as well! We’ve all attended those wedding in which the cake itself was beautiful, and placed on a perfect cake stand, but it was dry, too dense, the icing wasn’t good, or similar problems. It made for great pictures, but half eaten plates left at the reception tables aren’t what you want.

When Ben and I got married we asked our bake shop to make our cake chocolate, with white icing, of course. But as we cut into in, I found myself whispering “It’s not chocolate!” But that was a number of years ago!

Now wedding cakes are available in a range of different flavors, from the always popular almond to vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, key lime, hazelnut, mocha, and everything in between!

You can also add your choice of flavored fillings in between the layers, and can even use different flavors in between each layer.

So cake tasting is very important. And in most cases, even the groom comes along. After all, who can resist sampling all those goodies? And sometimes you’re actually “forced” to try out three or four different cake designers, just to be sure you have the right one! Cake tastings are not exactly what you’d think, because the bakeries usually use cupcakes in different flavors for the bride and other attendees to sample. One bakery we visited had an array of “fake” cakes to show us different styles they’d done over the years.You can also add your choice of flavored fillings in between the layers, and can even use different flavors in between each layer.

You can also add your choice of flavored fillings in between the layers, and can even use different flavors in between each layer.

One of our brides wanted cake pops rather than the traditional wedding cake. Sure, they planned to have a small one layer cake on display to cut and serve each other, but the main dessert was to be cake pops!

And not just any cake pops. She wanted cheesecake cake pops! Raspberry flavored cheesecake cake pops. Which most bakers didn’t do because of the difficulty of storage as well as getting the proper consistency. But we found someone who said she could do it. And proceeded to set up a tasting.

And she did a great job! She suggested we not do all raspberry since there are people (our daughter who was a bridesmaid being one of them!) who actually didn’t like raspberry. Personally it’s one of my favorites!

And the cake pops were delicious, and we decided on were a combo of vanilla and raspberry. They were quite popular at the wedding, and the display was beautiful! They even added a small one layer cake that they could cut and feed each other, to keep within the age-old tradition!

Funny thing…I brought several of the pops home from the tasting and left them in the fridge for my husband and daughter to try. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her the purple ones were raspberry, and later she called me and told me how delicious those purple ones were! Go figure!

The cake tastings for Ashley and Chris were fun as well, even though the groom was out of town so her matron of honor had to fill in for him. All Chris cared about was that it was almond flavored!

Brides and grooms are also changing what they have for their cake, like our bridal couple did with the cake pops. Couples are now electing to serve cupcakes, usually in a tiered display: cookie cakes; or donuts as one couple recently did; from their favorite doughnut shop of course.

One couple even decided to have a selection of various pies, since neither of them liked cake. Another made the pies into a “cake”.

Then there’s the couple who opted for a wedding cake made from rounds of cheese accented with fresh figs and grapes, since their wedding was held at a winery!