The Devil Meets Mr. Kahlua

For my dear friend Aleks' house warming, I decided to whip up a few cupcakes. Tired of my traditional red velvet creations, I decided to mix it up a bit. It being a Russian party, I determined there must be alcohol involved. After much contemplation, I came up with chocolate cake base topped with Kahlua butter cream frosting cupcakes. The recipe makes around 30 cupcakes.

Recipe
For the cupcakes:
1 cup butter at room temperature
2 1/2 cup white sugar
2/3 dutch processed cocoa powder
4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups hot strong coffee


For the butter cream:
1 cup milk
7 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup Kahlua
1 1/2 cups butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla



The night before making the cupcakes, remember to take the butter out of the fridge. Trust me, soft butter makes a world of difference when it comes to baked goods. I've learned the hard way. Whipping hard butter is not pretty -- I think I got a speck of flying fat in my eye once or thrice. Another option is to pop the butter in the microwave 15 seconds at a time until it's soft but not runny. 


Preheat the oven to 350º. Plop the butter, vanilla and sugar into a mixing bowl, using the paddle attachment, whisk on high until the butter is fluffy. When I made the cupcakes, I use the wire attachment and also put the cocoa with the butter; that just created a royal mess with the fine powder flying everywhere. Learn from my mistake and sift the cocoa with the flour, your counter/floor/lungs will thank me. Don't forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time so all the butter gets an equal whipping. Add one egg at a time to the mixture; whip at least 30 seconds before dropping in the next egg. This will ensure a fluffy cake. Add the sour cream and mix well.

Twas a mistake to use the wire whisk
instead of the paddle attachment

Next up, sift together the cocoa, flour, salt and baking soda. In three batches and using the slowest speed, add the flour mixture into the butter base. Make sure not to over mix as that will toughen the cake. Add the 2 cups of hot, strong coffee into the mix. Make sure to mix it with a spatula first before turning on the stand mixer so the coffee doesn't splatter everywhere. Once again, my blunder is your gain. The finished batter should be pretty runny compared to other cupcakes.

Don't forget to scrape down the sides from time to time

Scoop the batter into paper lined cupcake tins. I fill it to the edge of the liners and that gets me 30 cupcakes. If you don't want the muffin top to runneth over, fill it 2/3 way up. That should yield 36 cupcakes. Pop the pretties into the oven for 18 minutes and voila! Test with a tooth pick to make sure it's cooked through. Take the little babies out of the tray and let cool on a wire rack.

Before

After

Now onto the Kahlua butter cream. Pour the milk, coffee liquor and flour into a medium pan. Over medium low heat, continually stir the mixture with a sturdy whisk until it starts to thicken and darken. The pot should never boil and yes, as the contents thicken, it will become exponentially more tiring to whisk the mixture. It's a good workout, though. The roux will be ready when it becomes a sticky paste and all the liquid bind with the flour. Let cool.

Work it!

It should look like a heavy paste

While the roux cools, cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla on the highest speed until fluffy. Combine the cooled Kahlua mixture with the creamed butter and sugar. Continue to mix the contents on high until the butter cream is fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time to make sure everything is well combined.

Add the roux to the creamed butter

And we have Kahlua butter cream frosting!

Wait until the cupcakes are completely cooled before frosting them. I invested in a beginner's kit for cake decorating with a few pastry bags and tips. If you don't have that, you can just use a spatula to smear on the icing or put the icing into a ziplock bag, cut one of the corners and pipe on the frosting. I topped the cupcakes with a chocolate covered espresso bean that I purchased from Peet's Coffee, just to be fancy. 

Uh oh, I know what that looks like

Some were frosted better than others

Reflections
I definitely hit a few snags making these cupcakes. Made a mess with the cocoa powder flying everywhere and splattered the hot coffee when I added that into the batter toward the end. And to make it worse, I only bought 1 cup of sour cream when I needed 1 1/2 cups. Despite all the little setbacks, the cupcakes still came out marvelously! Next time, I will dab a bit of hazelnut liquor on the cakes before I frost them for an extra kick.