Irish car bomb cupcakes

Boyfriend's birthday was in July, and to celebrate I decided to bake him cupcakes. As much as everyone loves them, cupcakes aren't particularly masculine, they are cute, small, sweet.. not very manly by definition.

I wanted to make BOY cupcakes, and just making them blue wasn't going to cut it.

what IS manly? sweat, dirt, beer, sports..... wait, BEER!

Beer cupcakes, what an awesome idea. (thanks i though of it myself.)

So, my kitchen became a lab that day, because beer cupcakes is just an experiment, beer could make things explode when heated up for all i know.

I made a regular gluten-free* chocolate cupcake batter, replacing all of the water with the beer, plus about half a cup extra since I figured it would bake out. I made the batter extra chocolatey to balance out the Guinness flavor, I didn't want them to be too beer-y, that would be gross.

When I dumped the beer into the dry mixture it immediately began bubbling up, if you are going to make beer cupcakes make sure that your mixing bowl is nice and big. The bubbles were a bit, discouraging.. cupcake batter is not supposed to look like a science fair project, but once i started mixing everything together it calmed down and looked like regular batter.

I baked them for about 30 minutes.

I also made a Bailey's butter cream frosting.

(For those of you who aren't familiar with an 'Irish car bomb' it is when you drop a shot glass full of Baileys into a pint of Guinness and then drink the whole thing really fast.. classy, I know.)

Anyway, I made the frosting by mixing the butter, vanilla, confectioner's sugar and replacing the milk with Bailey's. The key to making butter cream frosting, is adding the confectioner's sugar a bit at a time, slowly, and adding the vanilla and milk (or baileys) towards the end once everything has had time to blend. otherwise you dump it all in at one time (guilty) and it takes FOREVER to get all of the lumps out. Seriously. we are talking a difference of 20 minutes.

Bailey's Butter cream frosting is VERY carmely and sweet, which I love and thought complimented the guinness flavor nicely, but not everyone loves so much sugar. I plan on making these cupcakes again soon but trying a different frosting. ( I guess the sugar sweetness wasn't so manly after al

These cupcakes were a huge hit at the birthday party, they were extremely moist, and very chocolately, although you could definitely pick up traces of the Guinness flavor. I only had a small taste-test because of the beer, but I have to say they were delightful, and probably the most manly cupcakes I have ever seen. I love Cupcakes.

*I know that by adding the beer to the cupcakes they were no longer gluten free, but I was making them for him and his party not myself, and I refuse to bake anything with regular flour in my new oven. So in the end, they were NOT gluten free, although you could definitely use Red Bridge or any other gluten free beer as a substitute for the Guinness, and I am sure it would be awesome.