Green Velvet Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Long time no see (again).

Life has been insanely busy for me, and that doesn't leave me a lot of time to even ponder what I could post on here.  But since it's currently Spring Break for me and I happen to have found a little extra time on my hands because of it, I thought I would let y'all know what I've been up to.

I baked cupcakes.

Green Velvet Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes by Flufferwuffer

Kick-ass, St.-Patty's-Day-themed cupcakes.

And they're really green.

I didn't bake them specifically for St. Patrick's Day, though.  I baked them for a good friend's birthday.  You see, his birthday was March 11, and he's got a thing for the color green.

Now I could have just made Green Velvet Cupcakes and called it good.  But I had also been dying to make Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, and with St. Patty's day close enough that I could get away with it, I combined the two.

This was my first attempt at making my own recipe, because I was discovering it's impossible to find a velvet cupcake recipe that is also made with Guinness.  I guess there isn't really a market for that, or something.

I haven't had red velvet, blue velvet, or velvet anything very much in my life, so I'm not sure if the texture turned out comparable to true velvet cupcakes, but all I know is that out of the 20 cupcakes my recipe made, they vanished pretty quickly (with some of my friends eating 3 or 4...) and I now have multiple people begging me to make them again.

All the pictures in this post are from a "test" cupcake, one that wasn't as big as the rest because it only had half of the batter.  I wanted to take more pictures, but the rest were literally gobbled up long before I could.

Considering I've never formulated a recipe before, I'm pretty proud of that.

However, I know that the following recipe isn't perfect, and I'll probably do some tweaking to it the next time I make it.

But, without further ado, whip up these babies for your St. Patrick's Day bash this weekend:

Green Velvet Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Boozy, green deliciousness.

Cupcake Ingredients (makes 20-24):

• 1 cup Guinness (or other stout)
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 3 T cocoa powder
• 2 1/3 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 t baking soda
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 T vinegar
• 3 oz green food coloring
• 3/4 cup buttermilk

Ganache Ingredients (adapted from Quick Feet, Good Eats)

• 8 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 T butter
• 3 T whiskey (optional) (you can also use less if you don't want a strong alcohol taste in the filling)

Cream Cheese Buttercream

• 2 sticks butter (1 cup)
• 8oz cream cheese
• 4-5 cups confections sugar
• 7 T Irish cream (more or less, to taste) (I used Merry's, but Bailey's is also a good option)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a saucepan, bring the butter and Guinness to a simmer until the butter melts.  Stir frequently.  Add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
• Optional: drink the rest of that Guinness while baking. Don't waste the rest of that bottle/can! 
3. Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, sugar) in a bowl.
4. Combine wet ingredients (eggs, vinegar, buttermilk) in a large bowl, using an electric mixer if available.  Add the Guinness mixture and stir to combine.  Add the flour mixture,  mixing on slow speed.  Add the green food coloring and watch the magic happen as you stir.
5. Put cupcake liners in muffin tins and divide batter up between them, filling them 3/4 full. Reduce oven heat to 325. Bake cupcakes for about 25 minutes.

Ganache Directions:

1. Chop up chocolate (alternatively, you can use chocolate chips.  I used half and half) and place in a medium, heat-safe bowl.
2. In a saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a simmer.
3. Pour the cream over the chocolate.  Let the mixture melt for a minute or two and then stir to combine.  If it doesn't get smooth after stirring, pop into the microwave for a few seconds at a time to help it melt.
4. Add the butter and whiskey and stir to combine.  Set aside and wait for the mixture to thicken to a pudding-like texture (I think it took roughly 30 minutes for mine?).  You can put it in the fridge to speed the process along, but make sure to stir it every once in a while.

Cream Cheese Buttercream

1. With an electric mixer, mix cream cheese and butter until smooth and fluffy.
2. Add confectioner's sugar a 1/2 cup at a time until it has a stiff but fluffy texture.  Add the Irish cream and mix it in.

This caption does not do the photo justice.

Pipe Ganache Into the Cupcakes...

1. Once the cupcakes are completely cool, cut out a cone in the center of each cupcake.  I did this with a knife, but I guess you can use an apple corer or something similar.  Make sure you don't cut the cupcakes all the way to the bottom.  You want to shoot for about 2/3 to the bottom, although I was nervous about screwing up so mine were a little shallow.
2. Using a piping bag or spoon, get the ganache in those holes.  Make sure that your ganache has thickened enough.  As mentioned earlier, it should be pudding-like.  Refer to the picture above to see how these babies look with ganache in them.

Then the Buttercream...

1. Using a piping bag, pipe the cream cheese buttercream on top of your cupcakes.
2. DONE! Now eat your pretties!

 For my cupcakes, I ran into a couple snags.  #1, my electric mixer broke while I was mixing the buttercream.  Like, completely shorted out.  So my buttercream didn't end up as thick as I would have liked, and since I had never used a piping bag for frosting before they didn't turn out as pretty as I wanted either.  But, all in good time!

**NOTE**  As mentioned earlier, I've never formulated a recipe before.  I know this one needs work!  One friend commented to me that at first he thought the cupcakes were rather bland, but the sweet from the ganache and frosting balanced that well.  Even so, I will probably tweak the recipe the next few times I make them to try and get them just right. You can try adding more sugar or more cocoa, but I can't guarantee they'll turn out!

A Geek Girl's Reflections on Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is in a few days.  Even if I wasn't grimly aware, looking at my stats page for this blog is enough of a reminder.

Why? Because every semi-romantic post I've ever put up suddenly has more hits than every other page.  Apparently you nerdy boys really need help picking out ways to propose to your gal, whether through Harry Potter or Pokemon or even Munchkin.  Who couldn't resist giving that special someone rainbow roses?

Let's not forget the "5 Gift Ideas for Your Geek Girl" post I wrote up last year (although, I think, some of the shops I talked about are temporarily closed, I think...

So, I thought about writing up another gift idea post to replace last year's.  Or at least expand on it.  After all, there are plenty of other places to get perfectly fantastic gifts for a nerdy woman like myself.

But, I didn't have the heart for it.  Then, I randomly came across a blog post where a woman gushed about all the wonderful Valentine's Days she's had.  And I realized why I didn't have the heart for throwing out gift ideas this year.

I've never had a memorable Valentine's Day.

Honestly.  I dated a guy for three years, and I couldn't tell you one thing he got me for V-day.  I don't know if he ever got me anything.  I guess he must have, but it was never more memorable than a rose and a tiny box of chocolates.  Because for all the work and thought I put into my gifts to him, there was no way that feeling was ever reciprocated back.  Should have been my first hint that relationship wasn't going to work.

No, despite recanting a poem for my lover, writing out a letter describing exactly how I felt about him (in my own handwriting; who does that anymore?) that was bound with ribbon, writing out the lyrics to our song as the background to a framed picture I drew for him, making his favorite dessert just perfectly as a surprise, wearing his favorite outfit just to attract a lingering gaze for that much longer...yeah, I got nothing.

You can call me bitter.  I guess what it boils down to is that I've simply put too much work into Valentine's Day to really expect that day to be worth it. 

Yeah, I get all the talk about it being a commercial holiday, blah blah blah...I just used to like acknowledging it as a day where it was socially acceptable to openly adore the guy I was head over heels for.

So, I'll be dully flipping Valentine's Day the bird as it passes on my calendar.  On the bright side, there will be many more February 14ths in my future...one of them is bound to burn into my memory, right?


(still wouldn't mind some chocolate bullets, though)

750 Daily Words in an Attempt to Become a Writer Again

Hey, a new post! That means I haven't altogether abandoned this blog yet!

That's the good news. The other good news is that I've been writing a lot lately. But everything I've been writing doesn't really have a place here.

I discovered a site called 750Words, and I promptly signed up and started writing. Surprisingly, the site was suggested to me by a few of my professors as a way to force oneself to write every single day. Because, writing every day makes you a better writer? (or some sort of logic like that)

So, I've been writing.  Daily.  I really like the site, because the badge system encourages you to come back and write every day and never miss a day or oh-my-fucking-god you just lost your 10-day-streak badge and now you have to start all over.  Which happened to me.  I missed my sixth day (although I blame the fact that my computer refused to connect to the internet the entire day).  When I went back to the site the next day and discovered I had to start over, I sat staring at the screen for a good 10 minutes in mock fury while my right eye twitched.

Anyway, want to know the really super cool thing about the site?  THIS

How fucking nifty is that?  Those are my stats from writing today.  Each day the site gives stats on how fast you typed and how quickly you finished, what your mood is, and your mindset.  While it isn't always completely accurate, I think it's really fucking cool, so you should too.

In short, I just wanted to let anyone still bothering to read this blog know that I'm not giving up--yet.  I'm still writing, and I still have my other, class blog to worry about, but I am too stubborn to completely give up on this, too.


Also, I'm thinking about recruiting another author to post on here.  Not sure we're going to go through with that, though.

Is This Thing On?

I've been putting this post off for entirely too long.

Do I even remember how to do this anymore?

Well...*ahem*...I feel as if anyone still devoted enough to read this deserves an apology from me.

It's been...well, let's be honest here--months--since I last updated this blog. I always meant to come back! I swear! (Doesn't this, what I'm doing right now still show that? I'm a good blogger...? Yeah, right.

Well, sorry. If that means anything at this point.


Here's the short-and-sweet version of my absence:

Something totally happened in my life to bring everything I ever wanted and hoped and dreamed to come crashing down. I couldn't muster up the ambition to keep doing anything. My classes suffered, and this blog suffered as well. I was fully ready to never write another post again. I just didn't have it in me. Eventually, things started to look up, but I felt guilty for having not updated. So I procrastinated (I'm good at that!). And procrastinated. Then things got really good, but I was still too guilty to write.

Then I realized that I wasn't exactly happy with how this blog was going anyway. I looked back at my last dozen or so posts and sort of thought to myself Who the hell was writing this? Because it isn't me. Now that I think about it, I was way too concerned with getting traffic and comments to write like myself. I was starting to lose my own voice in the mess of utter shit I didn't care about but I thought other people would.

So overall I realized that I felt guilty, but also didn't know what the hell to do to start up again. How do I explain to anyone still reading that I want to change things, but don't know how? Well, this is me trying.

I don't know if I'm going to be updating Cheap Geeks Anonymous anymore. I definitely want to, but I still have to figure out how to make this something I am happy to do again.

In the meantime, the catalyst that urged me to write this post is the fact that I had to start up a Wordpress blog for an online class I'm taking this semester. While most of what I'm writing over there is primarily for class, you may find what I'm writing there interesting. If so, click to visit it: Real Women Wear Corsets. I can't say I will be updating here again for a while, so if you want to read my writing again on any sort of regular basis, you'll have to pop in over there.

What I'm hoping is that the class awakens the enthusiasm I used to have for blogging. I hope that it gets rid of the "people-pleaser" part of me that cares how many comments or visits my blog gets, and coax out the me that just wants to fucking write. And hey, if people like the just fucking write! me, then I'll gain readership that way.

So. That's what's new.

Until next time,

The Estranged Owner of This Blog

Super Mario Bros In Real Life [Video]

I love these sorts of videos, especially when they are very well done like this one.  Enjoy!

Official “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part II” Trailer [Video]

Nothing more needs to be said.

Caption My Cat And Win J!NX Credit *CLOSED*

Ready for another J!NX giveaway? 
This time, I would like to mix things up a bit.  Instead of a simple-ish giveaway where you just enter, I thought some of you might like to work a bit more for your prize.  Don’t worry!  For those of you who just want a quick entry, I’ll be picking some winners at random, too.
Rules and Such:

• Mandatory: You must “like” J!NX on Facebook or subscribe to their newsletter to enter!
• Anyone can enter, as long as J!NX ships to you.  You can enter a total of five (5) times, as long as you have a different caption for each entry.  I will choose my five (5) favorite captions to win a $15 gift code, and five (5) will be chosen at random for a total of ten (10) winners.  Please submit the form separately for each entry.
• This giveaway will end midnight (CDT) Saturday, May 7.

Caption the following picture of Izzabel (the cat) and then fill out the form to enter!


^ Caption That ^

Thanks for entering, and good luck!  It’s not mandatory or anything, but consider sharing the giveaway with others; the more entries and traffic, the more I can give away next time!