Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Irish Cream Frosting

WOW, great St. Patty's Day dessert or anytime you've got some Guinness and Baileys laying around. These are really rich and moist with a good stouty flavor topped with a irish-creamy buttery frosting. I made them for a St. Patty's day dinner and it made 3 Dozen Cupcakes.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes
1 1/2 cup stout beer
1 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350F.
In a sauce pot, melt the butter and add the stout. Once simmering, remove from heat and whisk in cocoa powder, let cool. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sour cream. Beat in stout mixture. In another large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add the stout/sour cream mixture into the dry ingredients and beat briefly to combine, then fold batter until mixed thoroughly. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 of the way and bake for approx 17min.

Irish Cream Butter Frosting
6 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup butter unsalted
2 tsp vanilla
1 mini bottle of Baileys Irish Cream
1/4 cup Crisco
                                                                                                             Beat on high for ~5min until mixed and creamy.
Again, I used my completely hetero non-gay frosting decorator on the shell tip and round tip for the different spiral tops, then regular green sugar sprinkles

Restaurant Style Salsa

I love this salsa, and so do my coworkers when I bring extra into work. It's really easy to make, and really cheap, well I mean inexpensive. I use Mission Tortilla Chips from the grocery store. I used to get the Santitas chips since they are only $2 but the Mission ones are the better buy per ounce if you do the math ... or look at the price per ounce on the shelf label. 

2 cans of 14oz diced tomatoes

2 cans of 10oz Rotel original
1 cup chopped cilantro

1 cup chopped onion

1 finely chopped jalapeño pepper - the more seeds, the hotter it will be
1 clove minced garlic

1 tsp cumin
juice of half a lime

pinch of salt

blend until desired chunkiness

I use a blender since I don't own a food processor. Place all ingredients in and pulse a couple times then take a wooden spoon and push/fold the mixture down a couple times then pulse again.
CHEF NOTES:
- Since I consider this a healthy bite - I get the diced tomatoes that are no salt added
- Rotel also has a chunky style that I usually get, but I haven't tried the Mexican or Spicy one
- I found that if you get risky with the jalapeño, you might want to grab an extra can of diced tomato to throw in if its too spicy, or for your house guests are too pussy for the heat

Blood Oranges

I am a frequent flyer of Pinkberry ever since it swirled into Nashville this past fall. I usually go on my days off after the gym, I consider it a healthy snack even though I sometimes add chocolate crisps, brownies bites, graham crackers, waffle cones, cheesecake bites (they keep them hidden under the counter, just ask for it!) and sometimes the swirly-whip. Logically the pomegranate seeds, blackberries, granola, pineapple that I'll get cancel those bad ones out. I have tried the original, chocolate, pomegranate, pumpkin, coconut and blood orange. The blood orange was something I had never heard of before and thought it would be no different than a regular orange, I was wrong, it was better.

Another Whole Foods Adventure (WFA is what it will now be abbreviated to because typing it is too long), brought me to the orange section where there was blood oranges, so I grabbed a couple of them. I wasn't sure how to eat them, if they would peel off like a navel orange, if they had seeds, or how much blood would flow when I cut into it.

Overall, the blood orange did not have seeds, the rind does peel away like a navel orange, and only a little blood spilled (CAUTION - the dark blood stains). The flavor is juicier and not tart like an orange can be, like I said, it's better than a real orange.

Whole Foods Adventures

Went to the great Whole Foods in Green Hills (mine to the left which is where Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban frequent, but I've yet to see them) again recently, it's probably a once a week trip. Since I've never been to a Whole Foods before I moved south, I told myself that every time I go, I would buy something 'new' or 'weird' and try it. Some of the things so far I bought were: Almond butter - kind of like Nutella but different taste, amaretto-ish, not a fan of the grittiness, Coconut milk - drank a couple sips and dumped it out, Rice milk - like it and still buy it regularly, Red snapper - great with just some garlic, lemon, s+p in a pan. That's all I can remember for now, but I'll post more if I remember

Marlee is also a huge fan of Whole Foods, she gets some holistic All Natural Dog Food (corn and wheat free since her food allergies acted up once we moved south to the Nashville Dustbowl), Newmans Own organic dog treats (turkey and sweet potato), frozen dog food meals, and a whole bunch of other expensive items that I buy for her and get no thanks in return for. 

My newest purchase is buckwheat soba noodles. I'm thinking about making a sesame/soy/ginger sauce to go with it I had back in Albany once at DeJohn's Restaurant (great martinis!) - probably post it when I make it, if it turns out good.

What a delicious  mess!

I'm currently making my own cucumber vodka. I was at Virago sushi bar and had a drink mixed with it, the only thing to describe it was refreshing. That should be done in a week or so and if that turns out good then I'll post the recipe for it along with the drink.

Since no food with this post, I'll post a pic of the foot-long chili cheese dog I had at the Predators hockey game the other night before I went to work, lets just say that work was shitty that night.

Fran's 'Famous' Frosting

This frosting, which I dubbed famous, is one of the best homemade frostings I've ever had/made. The key to this frosting is that its fat based, meaning lard ... just kidding it's Crisco, wait is that lard?

I first had this frosting several years ago at the Fran's house (my sister's mother-in-law) for New Years. I was taught that the main way to eat this frosting is not on desserts, but by the spoonful in the bowl, which she served both ways.

4 cup confectioners sugar

1 stick of softened butter (not margarine)

1/2 cup Crisco

1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup evaporated milk

beat on high for 5 minutes in large bowl

These brownie fingers were made with the Pillsbury box kind of brownies in a 13x9. I got this awesome Wilton 'triple-finger' cutter from Michaels. The frosting is piped from my entirely, completely non-gay Wilton dessert decorator. The brownies fingers are made even more manly with the white sugar pearls.