Bailey's Irish Cream Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

You heard me.

My boyfriend likes to make houseguests think I am an alcoholic by buying large quantities of girly liqueurs and not drinking them, ever. So I stole his Mint Chocolate Bailey's Irish Cream and made cupcakes with it. Oh yes. And so should you.



I adapted the recipe from http://www.bakingbites.com/.



Bailey's Mint Chocolate Irish Cream Cupcakes with Bailey's Frosting



1 1/3 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup Chocolate Mint Bailey’s Irish Cream (or regular Bailey’s + 1/2 tsp peppermint extract)1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar, and cocoa). In another bowl, beat together the softened butter, eggs, vanilla, milk, and the Bailey's. Or you can be lazy like me and do it all on one bowl, wet ingredients first. Pour the batter ino muffin tins lines with cupcake wrappers and bake for 12-14 minutes.



While the cupcakes are baking, you can make your frosting. Nicole from Baking Bites goes the homemade route. Here's her frosting recipe:



4 tbsp butter, softened

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

2 tbsp milk or cream

1 tsp peppermint extract


But I'll be honest with you: I took a container of store-bought white frosting and mixed in Bailey's and cocoa. How much cocoa? Until it looked chocolatey. How much Bailey's? Until it looked dangerously thin. God, I'm such a cheat. It's almost too easy.



My one complaint with these cupcakes was that they were a little dense; I was hoping for a lighter, fluffier cupcake. Does anyone have any tips?

Homemade Pasta

OK, so I tried an experiment today, but no pics. I stole a recipe for homemade pasta from The Pioneer Woman, a.k.a. Ree Drummond, a.k.a. the most hilarious woman in the world. She used two eggs per cup of flour. So I kneaded the dough until it was smooth, then cut it into thin strips with a knife. The recipe said to boil the noodles for no longer than two minutes, but I found that they were still far too hard until about eight minutes in.

I didn't take any pictures, mostly because the noodles were freakin' ugly, man, but also because I was hungry. They were pretty good, but I'll be perfectly honest - they weren't much better than regular old dried, boxed pasta. I think their texture was a little more pleasing to the mouth, but that's about it.

THIS JUST IN: I have bought measuring cups, I repeat, IN POSSESSION OF MEASURING CUPS. Life is good.

Biscuits for College Students

Me: "Did you KNOW that you can make biscuits using nothing but Bisquick and milk? Isn't that CRAZY?!"

Sean: "...That's why they call it Bisquick."

Me: "...I can honestly say I never put that together."

So apparently, Bisquick is intended for biscuits, not pancakes. I never knew. Shockingly, they're, like, good, even. I swear to God Amighty that sentence is punctuated correctly.

So obviously you could just look on the side of the Bisquick box, but just for shits and giggles, here's the recipe: 1.5 cups Bisquick for every .5 cup milk. Preferably buttermilk. Pronounced "buttahmilk". (Makes it taste bettah.)

Tales from the Ghetto: I don't own a baking pan. I baked these in a muffin tin. I also ran out of color film and didn't have money for more, so enjoy these black and white photos of my biscuits and pretend they're all golden with crinkly brown edges.

Farmer's Market Goodness!

Just a couple of humble photographs from my local Allentown farmer's market. Look! Jam! Lots of it! I buy honey from this stand, usually - the thick, rich, brown variety. Then I use it when I get desperate. (See below.)

And look! Big, juicy red tomatoes! I bought these. (Not all of them. Though I should have.)

Chocolate Banana Muffins

I figured muffins would be an appropriate first post, since they are my favorite food. (And I wonder why I am plagued by Ghetto Booty.) These beauties were adapted from a recipe I found at catcancook.com. FUN FACT: I was halfway through making them when I realized I had no sugar. I used an entire jar of honey instead. I honestly think it made them better. They were so fluffy I wanted to cuddle with them. But I would have gotten warm chocolate ganache all over me. Oh, the tragedy.

Chocolate Banana Muffins:

-3 large bananas, mashed
-1/2 cup white sugar (...or honey.)
-1 egg
-1/3 cup melted butter
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 & 1/2 cups flour

Dark Chocolate Ganache:
-1 bag dark chocolate chips (preferably Ghirardelli. Go for the good stuff.)
-heavy cream

In a large mixing bowl, mix the dry ingredients (sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, flour) and the banana until homogenous. Add in the melted butter and egg. Stir, but not too much! There should still be visible chunks of banana*. Pour into buttered** muffin tins and baked at 350 for 20 minutes.***

While the muffins are baking, heat the chocolate over a double boiler. Every few minutes as you stir, add a dash of heavy cream. This will help the chocolate melt more easily. Keep stirring and adding cream until the mixture is the consistency of, say, elmer's glue. Or ganache. Then turn off the stove so that later, while you're lying in bed, you don't wake up realizing that you've left it on. Take the muffins out of the oven (presuming that they're done) and drizzle the ganache over them. Then hoarde them from your fiance, cackling with sticky, chocolate-covered glee.

*Mmmm.
**Or Pam-ed, if that's your poison
***Or, if your oven is 321975321897 years old like mine, 25 minutes.