Irish Cupcake (da)Bombs

So, St. Patty's is comin' up, which meant this month's staff meeting was Irish themed. I wasn't a part of the staff meeting committee this month, but they still asked me to make cupcakes! I guess last month's left them wanting more :) I started searching for a good idea. I initially thought to do chocolate mint cupcakes (one of my favorite flavor combinations), until I stumbled upon this recipe for a Guinness cake. I was intrigued. So I did a little more research and found this recipe from Big City, Little Kitchen and this one from The Reckless Chef. I liked how the BCLK recipe had more dark brown sugar, 'cause I was worried the cake might not be sweet enough with the addition of the stout, but I liked The Reckless Chef's idea of a Baily's buttercream frosting. So I combined the two and created the Irish Cupcake Bomb!

I wish I could tell you how amazing they tasted, but sadly I didn't get to try one. I'm on this crazy diet--it's going pretty well and I didn't want to mess it up. But everyone at the meeting said they were delicious and there weren't any leftover, so I think it's safe to say they were pretty good.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! And because my middle name has an apostrophe in it (O'Keefe) I don't feel weird saying, "May the luck 'o the Irish be with ya!" Okay, I do feel a little weird saying that... :)