Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes!

I think I found this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker on Pinterest and couldn't wait to try it.  Last week I made it as a cake and donated it to a cake auction for an American Kidney Foundation benefit.  My cake auctioned at $600!  I'm told two doctors were in a bidding war over it because of the flavor.  None of the other cakes went for more than $200.  My cake set a record for money raised at these events :)

Here is my cake in the lineup.

Since, when making chocolate cake, I have a hard time straying from the best chocolate cake recipe ever, found here, I modified the Brown Eyed Baker one (whose was adapted from someone else) to fit my preferences.  This is a Guinness chocolate cake with Jameson chocolate filling and frosted with Bailey's Irish Cream buttercream. 

For the Chocolate Cake
2 C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C vegetable oil
2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 C cocoa
2/3 C sour cream
1 C Guinness Stout
Cream together the sugar, oil and eggs.  Sift together the dry ingredients and stir into creamed mixture.  Typically, after creaming the first ingredients, I dump in all the dry ingredients, start up the mixer, and slowly pour in the liquids, then up the speed of the mixer and let it run until it's all well blended.  For cupcakes, pour about 1/4 C of batter into each liner and bake at 350° for 18 minutes, for a cake, decrease the flour in the recipe to 1 3/4 C, divide the batter into 2 oiled (Bakers Joy cooking spray) 8" pans and bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

For the Filling
1 stick of maragarine, softened
2/3 C cocoa
3 C powdered sugar
2 T milk
2 T Jameson whiskey
Combine margarine and cocoa, blend in powdered sugar, alternately with milk and whiskey.  Beat until well combined.
The other recipes I've seen for these cupcakes call for hollowing out the center of the cupcake for the filling.  I believe this is a completely unneccesary step and just jabbed the tip of the icing bag into the center of the cupcake and gave the bag a good squeeze.  I think this is a better cake to frosting ratio.

For the Icing
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 C vegetable shortening
4 C powdered sugar
1 T meringue powder
4-6 T Bailey's Irish Cream
Cream together butter and shortening, add powdered sugar and stir to partially combine, add Bailey's one or 2 tablespoons at a time until it stirs to a consistency you like.