Irish Car Bomb/Chocolate Coffee Stout Cake - Cake Mix Tweak #4

Wow, it's been a long time, huh? It makes me realize how little I've been baking, which is good for my waistline, but bad for the blog.

'Tis the season for holiday potlucks and office parties, and as such I agreed to bake five or so dozen cupcakes for Sean's office. And of course as luck would have it, I've been REALLY busy this week at work myself, so no way was I going to grind my own flour and churn my own butter and gather eggs for six geese-a-laying or however the song goes. Nope.  I was going to make it as easy on myself as possible, which meant that I was falling back on a cake mix of some sort for at least one of the flavors.

My most popular frosting? Irish cream. So what goes with Irish cream? Chocolate and coffee.  But what about chocolate coffee stout and make it a riff on the cocktail of sophisticated college students everywhere... the Irish Car Bomb?

For the uninitiated, any drink that has "bomb" in the name means you're dropping a shot glass of liquor into a larger glass of alcohol, usually beer. An Irish Car Bomb is a pint glass, filled halfway with Guinness (or another stout), with a shot of Irish cream on the side. You drop the whole shot glass into the pint, tap it hard on the bar, and chug it down as fast as you can--because as soon as the Irish cream hits the carbonation of the stout, it begins to curdle. Then you slam the empty glasses back down on the bar, wipe your mouth on your sleeve, and give your companion a fist bump of victory. I know, I know, it sounds nasty, but the flavor is actually a very rich, chocolatey, almost coffee-like taste. Perfect to transfer to a cake.

And guys... This is so simple. I had everything on-hand already, which means a lot of you might, too. And the beer flavor can be very prevalent, depending on how much coffee you add--so it's definitely for the stout-hearted. *snicker* get it? Stout-hearted? Heh.

Anyway, here's what you do:

1. Grab your favorite box of chocolate cake mix (I'm partial to Betty Crocker chocolate fudge)
2. Replace the water with stout, porter, or a dark seasonal ale (I used Jubelale by Deschutes Brewing, because that's what we had on-hand)
3. Add 2-3 tablespoons of instant coffee (you can add more if you want. The more you add, the more pronounced the stout flavor becomes... And it's an effective tool for turning your non-stout beer stout-ish.)
4. Throw in an extra egg
5. Mix and bake according to package directions

Easy-peasy. You'll even have time to take some of that Irish cream from the frosting you're making, drop it into that extra stout you've saved aside, and chug it all down. Sláinte! (Cheers!)