St. Patrick’s Day – Bailey’s Caramel Irish Cream Mini Cupcakes

I know I know. This is my second post today. I was going to put these together with the last post for St. Patrick’s Day but I didn’t have time this morning and then I back this afternoon and thought they were too cute to go to waste.

The cupcake itself came out more like a spiked caramel blondie in taste and consistency. I thought they were going to be a fail, but they actually were delicious. Chewy with a great caramel flavor. I kept snacking on the naked ones and I love frosting.

I used caramel sugar  in the batter which really amped up the caramel flavor.

For the frosting I divided the buttercream into three parts and colored them three different shades of green using Wilton’s food coloring gel in Kelly Green (of course!) I used a few drops less each time to achieve the  green color variations.

I put each color into a separate disposable pastry bag and snipped the ends off. Stating with the darkest shade of green, I piped the bottom layer.

Then piped the medium shade in the middle.

And topped the cupcakes off with a swirl of the lightest shade of green.

Unfortunately, the colors didn’t contrast as well in pictures as they did in real life.

These minis needed an accent so I colored some marshmallow fondant green and rolled it out.

Using the same four leaf clover shamrock I used for the marshmallows I cut out the shapes.

The shapes were cute but they still needed something extra for contrast.

So I hauled out the disco dust and painted them.

I used a recipe from Cupcake Rehab found HERE with some minor adaptations. My changes:

• Instead of using 2 cups of granulated sugar. I used one cup and one cup of caramel sugar. 
• I omitted the milk and used two more tablespoons of Bailey’s.
• I omitted the salt.

For the buttercream frosting:

I used my old standby vanilla buttercream frosting recipe from Magnolia Bakery.

For the Fondant Shamrocks: You can used already colored store bought fondant or make your own:

Once you have rolled out the fondant and cut out the shapes, you will need disco dust, a small paintbrush and a bit of clear drinking alcohol (vodka, etc.), Dip the paintbrush in the vodka and cover the fondant surface. Then dip the paintbrush in the disco dust and paint it on over the alcohol. Remember, a little of both the alcohol and the dust goes a long way.