Food Adventures #8: Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Cupcakes

Yesterday while the Missus was up in Iowa Falls for a mild girl's weekend, I had a hankering for Laird's Applejack. I'd heard about the stuff here and there and thought, in a fit of patriotism that it'd be pretty kick-ass to try the hooch that (reportedly) the Founding Fathers themselves were hip too.

Unfortunately, I didn't find any- but what I did find was some Evan Williams Cherry Reserve. For some reason, flavored or infused whiskeys seem to be popular as of late. Jack Daniels has their (delicious) Tennessee Honey. Wild Turkey has their (equally delicious and slightly cheaper) American Honey. Southern Comfort turned to lime and then, strangely, to Tabasco (I'll be reviewing that in an upcoming 'Hooch, Man'- it's not quite as bad as it sounds.) So I figured, why not see what the Cherry Stuff was like.

And it was good. Sweet- perhaps a little reminiscent of cough syrup, but it went down nicely.

But I was sitting there this morning when it struck me. I had been thinking about using some Orange Patron and making some Chocolate Orange Patron Cupcakes for Nurse Ratchet's Birthday party- but then, suddenly, I thought, why not Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Cupcakes? And thus, the wild hair reached up and tickled my nether regions and these emerged:

How did they emerge? Easy- the original recipe was for Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes:

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 heaping TBS of cocoa
1 stick butter
1/2 cup coffee
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

All I did was swap out the coffee for the bourbon and added a cup of chopped maraschino cherries and that was it. (For the Orange Patron ones I was going to switch out the coffee for Patron and throw in some orange zest- but that's a recipe for another day.)

For the rest of the recipe-
In a small bowl, dissolve baking sida in room temperature buttermilk.

In a sauce pan, melt butter and cocoa together at a low temperature, when smooth add coffee (or bourbon or whatever)

In a separate bowl, sift together sugar, flour and salt. Add cocoa mixture and egg and mix at low speed.

Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

So, switch out coffee for whatever you want and get a little crazy and add something if you need too. The results could be... delicious.

P.S. My downfall continues to be frosting. I just can't get it quite right and it just spreads everywhere and looks like crap. Gonna keep hammering away at it.