Kahlua Cupcakes

I have three weeks (actually, it's more like 19 days, but who's counting?) until I graduate college and move back home. Where I know, for a fact, that my mom already has a ton of flour, sugar, and other necessary baking ingredients. Which means I need to use my ingredients up. Darn, that means I have to bake (sarcasm). Plus, I have a terrible case of senioritis which is preventing me from studying for the final I have tomorrow. The best cure for senioritis? Cupcakes, of course.

Since one of the ingredients I have to use up in the next 19 days is the majority of a bottle of Kahlua, I figured I'd make Kahlua cupcakes. I tried chocolate Kahlua cupcakes before, but I think the chocolate overpowered the Kahlua. So, I found a recipe for White Russian cupcakes from Baked Perfection and modified it to meet my needs/ingredients. Plus, I made half a batch. I also used my own recipe for the frosting...which was really just me mixing stuff together until it tasted good. Ha, story of my life.

Anyway, these are delicious. Perfect amount of coffee/Kahlua-ness. The frosting is a little sweet, but I was trying to use the end of my bag of powdered sugar and was not measuring anything. My fault there.

Kahlua Cupcakes
Makes about 6 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 5/8 cup AP flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder 
• 3/8 cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup Kahlua
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  *the original recipe calls for salt, but since I used salted butter, I eliminated that. If using unsalted butter, throw a pinch of salt in.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees; line cupcake pan.
2. In a bowl, mix together flour and baking powder; set aside.
3. In another bowl, cream the butter & sugar until combined and the butter is totally creamy.
4. Add the egg; mix well. Add the vanilla, mix well.
5. In one liquid measuring cup, measure out the 1/4 cup of buttermilk and 1/4 cup Kahlua (should equal 1/2 cup of liquid). 
6. Alternate between adding the flour and liquids to the butter/sugar/egg mixture. Mixing just enough to incorporate the ingredients between each addition.
7. Scoop batter into cupcake pan. I have found that two full soup spoonfuls of batter is the perfect amount per cupcake.
8. Bake for 17-20 minutes. Check at 15 minutes with a toothpick inserted into the middle; if it does not come out clean, bake for another few minutes. Mine baked for 17 and were perfectly done.
9. Let cupcakes cool in the pan until touchable; take out of pan and let them finish cooling on a rack or the counter or the kitchen table.
10. Once completely cool, frost.

I'm not going to include the recipe for the frosting, since I don't have one. What I'm going to suggest, is that you use the Mocha Buttercream from my previous post, just without the melted chocolate or cinnamon. Also, for 6 cupcakes, you'll want to half that recipe. Use either Kahlua or strong coffee in the frosting; it's up to you. I used four-hour old coffee and it's delicious.