As soon as the Iron Cupcake challenge for June was announced "celebration", the three main things I like to celebrate with went through my mind.
1. Manowar - I wasn't what kind of cupcake I could make to signify a sweaty, leather clad, metal band, nor if such a cupcake would appeal to all,
2. Cupcakes - obviously! Birthdays, wedding anniversary's, Christmas, Easter, valentines, weekends, wet days, sunny days, basically any excuse for a celebration = a good excuse for a cupcake. However cupcakes are kind of a given as its Iron Cupcake so, again no,
3.Booze - and lashings of it. Preferably in a frozen cocktail concoction or involving hard liquor!
So I began some boozy cupcake trials. Not all of them successful.
First up - Jack Daniels and Coke cupcakes as pilfered from the Eat Me! book by Xanthe Milton. Although pilfered I did change it slightly and add a touch more Jack Daniels.
This was quite a tasty cake, although I found the cupcake base itself a little boring - I should've bunged a bit of JD in there or some chocolate chips to make it a bit more chocolaty. The frosting was basically melted choc, icing sugar, coke and JD. I added a bit more than suggested here as I tried it and it was a v.faint JD taste. In the end I may have gone a tad overboard as they had quite a kick and I may have got a friend slightly tipsy on the one she had! All in all they were quite tasty, boozy cupcakes but nothing special, and now I've learned how to pipe in a pretty(ish) fashion I like to do that rather than just the old method of slap it on which I had to do with these.
Finally the recipe calls for you to add black food colouring to turn the chocolate frosting black - I'm really not sure why as that is just quite absurd isn't it? Anyhow I didn't - I have black food colour but to me a chocolate frosting should be chocolate coloured.
If you're a fan of JD I would recommend these cakes but perhaps add a shot of JD to the base to give it a bit of a kick!
