White Russian Cupcakes

Alright, so I need to catch up to my Food and Fiction Reading Challenges…but I haven’t really read a book lately that garnered any inspiration to cook good food. Alright, correction, I haven’t been inspired at the moment to cook good food. Besides the homemade tortilla pizza the other day, but that doesn’t count, ’cause that also wasn’t a Food and Fiction-y creation.

This one isn’t, either. But I’m going to post it anyway.

March came the return of my therapeutic baking, and this time I come bearing alcoholic gifts! For the past two years, I’ve actually made Guinness cupcakes with chocolate whiskey ganache and Bailey’s cream frosting. This year, I didn’t want to go all out. I mean, I already had an Irish Cream in the fridge, but I really didn’t want to have to work with another bottle of Guinness, because honestly, I hate drinking up the leftovers. Most beers and I do not often mix.

So this time, I decided I’d try to make cupcakes that threw vodka into the mix. And still make it a bit St. Patrick’s Day-themed.

Behold the White Russian Mini Cupcakes!

I actually wished I had green mini cupcake filters, but didn’t have the time to head to the store to grab some, so I made do with the ones I got. That said, I think they came out adorable! And the ganache has got to be the best one I’ve managed to do so far. Or maybe I’m just biased, because I am a vodka girl and not so much a whiskey one…

I got the recipe from Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen, although in all honesty, it was a bitch to have to convert everything from the Euro-measurements to the American ones (blast our weird non-metric system sometimes!). Thankfully, most things are Google-able now so I didn’t have to look too far to figure out whether 135 grams of unsalted butter meant a stick or two.

For the Euro measurements, you might as well head over to Charlotte’s recipe, she’s got quite a lovely blog.

For the Americanized version, here were my approximate conversions:

White Russian Mini Cupcakes

Ingredients

Vodka Ganache

• 2 oz. dark chocolate
• 1/4 cup heavy (whipping) cream
• 2 tsp vodka

Cake

• 1 medium egg
• 1/2 cup heavy (whipping) cream
• 50 ml Irish cream
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt

White Russian Buttercream

• 1 stick unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 2 cups confectionary sugar
• 2 Tbsp Irish cream
• ½ Tbsp vodka

Making the Ganache

1. Place dark chocolate in a small saucepan and heat very gently until melted.
2. Remove from the heat immediately and pour the chocolate into a bowl. Add the heavy cream and mix until combined.
3. Add vodka and mix until combined.
4. Leave to cool in the fridge until it ganache is at pudding consistency.

Making the Cake

1. Pre-heat oven 350F.
2. Using an electric mixer, whisk heavy cream cream to stiff peaks. Once stiff, add the vanilla extract and gradually add the Irish cream.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk egg until just frothy.
4. Add egg to the whipped cream and whisk for a couple of minutes.
5. Gradually add the granulated sugar, whisk in each addition before adding more. Once all of the sugar is added whisk on a high speed for a couple of minutes.
6. Sift the remaining dry ingredients into the cream mixture and carefully fold them together until thoroughly combined.
7. Spoon the cake batter into the cupcakes cases.
8. Bake for 18-20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
9. Once baked, transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Making the Buttercream

1. Beat butter with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add some of the confectionary sugar 1/2 cup at a time, making sure to mix thoroughly before the next. Combine Irish cream and vodka into the mix and add remaining confectionary sugar until you get desired buttercream consistency.

Construct the cupcakes

1. Use a teaspoon to scoop out the center of each cupcake.
2. Fill the center with ganache.
3. Pipe the buttercream onto the top.
4. Serve.

Some changes:

I used Molly’s Irish Cream and a splash of Grey Goose vodka, which was what I had in handy, and the cupcakes came out just as delicious! There were a few things I altered in the recipe, such as the amount of confectionery sugar I really used (around 1 1/2 cup as opposed to 2) and the order in which I did the recipe. To be honest, I tend to do the ganache first because I like my ganache to set for a bit before I pipe it into the cupcake.

Make note: this is, right now, my favorite ganache recipe, so I will definitely be doing it again!

(That said, it also helped that I purchased my dark chocolates from Jacques Torres, which made the ganache doubly amazing.)

Once the cupcakes were assembled, off they went! Honestly, I didn’t even leave any at home, the staff in school loved it, and I had to literally fend off any more takers to save the last one for myself.

Verdict: The frosting was a little too sweet for me, though the Irish cream flavor did show through. The best part was always going to be the ganache, because chocolate and vodka makes Mari happy.

Bon appetit!