Sweets

So, Smitten Kitchen is basically my new lord and master. Not on a google-ish level yet, but close.

Three weeks ago, when I was fantastically sick with this completely soul-crushing cold and couldn’t bear to ingest anything, I made Deb’s variation on the canonical “Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic” recipe floating around out there, along with Lemmonex’s Blueberry Yum Yum: a blueberry and goat cheese salad with a homemade pomegranate vinaigrette, and finally my mom’s olive oil-y roasted potatoes; it was totally magical. I mean, garlic and blueberries are like cold-killing superfoods, supposedly. Plus, despite the fact that he’s the cook and I’m the baker, my boyfriend was a little jealous that the one night I actually made a dinner, he wasn’t around for it (although with 4 pounds of chicken, he ate plenty of delicious leftovers!).

This weekend, for Valentine’s Day, I made Deb’s Irish Carbomb Cupcakes. They were amazing: Guinness-chocolate cupcakes, hollowed out and filled with a fudgey Jameson ganache, and topped with Bailey’s buttercream frosting. The alcohol bakes out of the Guinness (the flavor remains), but the liquors are potent; I suspect that I was in violation of open-container laws by transporting some on the T.

First, thank you to my mom for my amazing KitchenAid stand mixer. My first, and only previous, sad (yet utterly delicious) attempt at buttercream was gritty and grainy and lumpy, and it was 100% because I attempted to mix it by hand. The electric mixer is a minor miracle of food science. I also have to say that I whiskeyed the ganache by taste, because the measurements seemed a bit light to me. I ended up putting in definitely at least double the amount the recipe called for, and the ganache was super-yummy and Jameson-y and a perfect consistency. I can only assume Deb’s not a big fan of that flavor, but it was incredible against the chocolate.

Here’s the cupcakes waiting to be frosted, freshly filled with the Jameson-chocolate ganache in my refrigerator:

And here’s the cupcakes frosted with the Bailey’s buttercream frosting. I have to say I actually went out and bought an Ateco professional-grade 8-piece cake decorating set just for these cupcakes. KitchenArts on Newbury Street = heaven. So, this is my very first-ever time playing with a pastry bag. The results:

Not ugly. It was very fun.

And words fail me to describe how yummy.