Cupcakes-Valentine's 2013

It's Valentine's Day!  So I made cupcakes :)  I want to make cherry cookies and I decided to try using alcohol instead of just extract (because I'm too lazy to juice cherries).  So I had some cherry brandy around the house and figured I'd try chocolate cake with cherry brandy.  In the past I've made Bailey's cupcakes which are delicious but often end up being too dry so I fiddled, this is the outcome.

Chocolate Cherry Brandy cupcakes with Cherry Cream Cheese icing

Ingredients:

Cupcakes
1 box (15.25oz) chocolate cake mix with pudding
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4c buttermilk
1/4-1/3c cherry brandy

Icing
8oz 1 box) cream cheese, softened
1c confectioner's sugar
1/2c (1 stick) butter, softened
1tsp vanilla
2tsp cherry juice (from maraschino jar)
1/4c chopped maraschino cherries

Directions:

1. Mix cake mix, eggs, oil, buttermilk, and brandy until integrated, then beat on medium-high for 2min (the whole 2min, set a timer if you have to)
2. Pour into cupcake liners, fill 2/3 full and bake @ 350F for 10min, then rotate and bake until finished at 300F (usually ~5min).
3. Remove and let cool before frosting
4. For icing, beat cream cheese until smooth, then add butter, sugar, vanilla, and 1 tbs? cherry juice; add additional juice to taste, be careful not to make it too runny.
5. Whip icing for 1-2min on medium-high and store in the fridge until cupcakes are ready to frost.
6. To frost the cupcakes, cut the top off of the cupcake at the edge of the cupcake liner (a serrated bread knife works beautifully).  Flip the top of the cupcake over (see picture) and cut out the heart shape with a cookie cutter.  Frost the cupcake and replace the top with the heart cut out.  Once all the cupcakes are topped, pipe the remaining icing into the heart to fill them to the top of the cupcake.

Notes:
-I normally use cake mix without pudding but they were all out of plan chocolate yesterday so I went with "Triple Chocolate" cake mix with pudding and it turned out really well
-I've had problems making cake with alcohol before because it ends up in a very dry cake.  I think removing an egg white, adding a little more buttermilk, and using cake mix WITH pudding made a huge difference
-Icing recipe is the "one and done" cream cheese frosting base with cherries and juice added
-The icing is softer than what I normally make but since it's sandwiched in the cupcake it doesn't make a big difference and refrigerating before frosting helped the consistency.
-If you don't want to use brandy you can still flavor the batter with maraschino cherry juice
-Reducing the temperature about 1/2 way through baking gives the cupcakes more of a dome shape
-Cutting the cupcake top upside down makes the outline sharper => prettier cupcakes


The Verdict:
-Well they were all gone by about 2pm, so I'm thinking everyone liked them.  I thought they turned out MUCH better than expected.  They weren't dry at all and the flavors worked well together.


Original Recipe from:  me