So to make my Guinness and Bailey’s cupcakes, I had to buy a 6-pack of Guinness and a decent sized bottle of Bailey’s. I couldn’t bear to let the rest of them just sit there, so I searched the interwebs for another Irish-themed treat I could make. I came across this recipe by See Brooke Cook and gave it a go. Just a word of warning though: this recipe made A TON of truffles. I used a cookie dough baller to make sure they were all evenly sized and I wound up with about 75 truffles. So I’d recommend using half of the recipe!

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 1 1/2 cups Guinness
• 1 1/2 cups (345 grams) butter
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 cups flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup sour cream

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (approx 175°C). Grease two round cake tins and line the bottom with baking paper and set aside.

2. Stir the butter and Guinness in a small saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts, then whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. For an extra kick, you can add 1/2 tablespoon of espresso powder as well. Remove the mixture from the heat and set aside to cool.

3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. In a separate large bowl, mix together the eggs and sour cream. Once combined, add the cooled beer mixture into the egg mixture, stirring constantly so as to avoid scrambling the eggs. Gradually add in the dry ingredients until just combined. The batter should be a fairly runny consistency.

4. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepped cake tins and bake for 35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. While the cakes are cooling, prepare the frosting. Start by creaming the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl, add in the Bailey’s Irish Cream until smooth. Then gradually add in the icing sugar, and mix until everything is combined.

6. Once the cakes are cooled, crumble it into a large mixing bowl. You can do this by hand using a pair of forks. Line a few cookie sheets with wax paper or baking parchment and set aside. Add the frosting to the crumbled cake and mix together (the easiest way to do this is with your hands) until it reaches a thick dough-like consistency.

7. Using your hands, or a cookie dough baller, roll the dough into small balls and place on the lined cookie sheets. Place them in the freezer for about 15 minutes to set up, but don’t freeze! You can also place the dough balls in the fridge for a few hours instead.

8. Temper your chocolate by melting half of the chocolate chips over a double boiler (I use a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water) – be sure not to let the water boil, or the steam may drip into your chocolate and make it seize and it will be ruined! Once melted, add in the remaining chocolate chips and stir until smooth.

9. Using a fork, dip each of the chilled dough balls into the chocolate and coat completely. Lift them from the chocolate and allow the excess to drip off before replacing onto the cookie sheet.  Repeat until each of the cake truffles have been coated. Place the cookie sheets back into the fridge to allow the chocolate to set before serving.

When storing these truffles, I found it worked best to keep them in an airtight container in the fridge, otherwise if the room got too warm, they had a slight tendency to melt a bit and go soft. These are realllllyyyyy rich, so one or two makes a perfect treat!