Friday 16 March 2012

St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes with Bailey's Icing

St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect excuse for those of us with Irish heritage (which is basically everyone) and a kinship to alcoholism to have a grand old time. It’s also an excuse for those of us who like alcohol and cake to combine the two!  I’ve used a normal vanilla sponge with green food colouring and icing with Bailey’s Irish liqueur as my tribute to this jolly little holiday.  I wanted quite a light green colour but if you wanted to go the whole emerald way you’ll probably need a whole bottle of food colouring.

Ingredients (Makes 24 cupcakes)
3 eggs
200g of self-raising flour
200g of butter
200g of caster sugar
1 tsp of baking powder
Few drops of vanilla essence
Green food colouring
Butter, icing sugar and an Irish cream liqueur for the icing
Combine all the cake ingredients except for the food colouring into a large mixing bowl.

Add the green food colouring a few drops at a time so you can control the colour.


Use a desert spoon to fill the cupcake cases ¾ full and place in a preheated oven of 180C/Gas Mark 5 for 15-20 minutes or until springy to the touch.



Leave the cupcakes to cool on a wire rack. Make the icing by creaming together some butter and icing sugar. Add as much liqueur as you like, it’s really dependent on taste. I used half a miniature bottle of baileys.
I wanted to use green Smarties to decorate the tops but apparently they don’t sell Smarties ANYWHERE so I had to buy some random mini eggs which only had 6 green ones in the end…

Pipe a swirl of the Bailey’s icing on each cake and decorate with a sweet! (Or whatever you want really)
Enjoy with a proper Irish cuppa (or Guinness) and don’t forget to say t’anks a million!

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