Bailey's Irish Cream Cookies

 Here's a cookie recipe idea that was born out of a conversation about cupcakes. I had shared the Mini Egg Nog Cupcakes recipe on FB, and some friends wanted to know if I had a recipe for Bailey's Cupcakes too. Absolutely! So after I shared that recipe as well, I thought "wait, what if I do Bailey's COOKIES instead of cupcakes???" I immediately went on a search, and was VERY surprised at how many recipes I found! Great! The only thing was that many of the recipes had chocolate chips in them. I mean, I guess that's fine, I love chocolate chips and all, but it seemed to me that chocolate chips would overpower the flavor of the Bailey's, no?
  Then I found this recipe on a blog called Kirbie's Cravings, and she kinda said the same thing about not wanting to overpower the Bailey's flavor. Instead of chocolate, she used cappuccino chips, which I wasn't able to find without ordering online. So I decided to go with butterscotch chips, instead. They were DELISH! Not that you really need any chips at all, but why not? She also said she wanted to keep the cookies glaze free, but I decided to include a glaze, just to bump up the flavor even more. The results were amazing! The flavor is absolutely there, and the cookies are chewy and delicious! The recipe is super easy too! They're equally as perfect for St Patrick's Day as for Christmas, or just any day you feel like having some Bailey's! And if you're doing a cookie swap, this will be something new and different to bring to the party! I love that. Enjoy!



2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 
1 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
1 cup unsalted butter softened 
1 1/2 cups white sugar 
1 egg 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
3/4 cups baileys 
1 1/2 cup cappuccino chips (or other chips of your choice)



Preheat oven to 350°F.
Line baking sheets with silpat mats or parchment paper.
In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
 In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, Bailey's, and vanilla. Add in flour mixture at low speed until dough is formed. Add chips and mix on low speed until they are mixed into dough. Roll dough into balls about 1 1/2 inch in diameter and place onto baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Press palm of hand down on each cookie, so that they form round discs. Bake about 11 minutes in the preheated oven, or until light brown around the edges. Cookies will be slightly puffy when taken out from oven and will flatten after they cool.



Tips:
For the glaze, just add a few tbs of Bailey's to about a cup of powdered sugar, just until it's the perfect drizzling consistency. Only add 1 tbs of Bailey's at a time, because a little bit of liquid goes a long way when it comes to powdered sugar. Once the cookies are completely cooled, leave them on cooling racks, and then thinly drizzle the cookies. Let them sit for a few minutes until the glaze sets.
To make the cookies extra pretty, place 3 chips on top of each ball of cookie dough just before you put the tray in the oven. Then you can really see what you're getting! 
Are you a chocolate fanatic?? Then by all means, use chocolate chips! You can also do white chips, cinnamon chips, or even salted caramel chips. They would all work, but I think I'll still stick with butterscotch!

Guinness Stout Brownies with Bailey's Irish Cream Cheese Frosting

 I first got this idea several months ago when I was out with my Thursday Night Quizzo gang. Our fabulous friend (who always takes care of us) Carissa, brought us a little taste and I immediately said "oooo I have to make these!" So I looked at several different recipes, and this is where I landed! The brownie recipe is from a blog called LifeLoveandSugar, and the frosting recipe is from a blog called Family Fresh Meals. (Actually, FFM added 4-6 tbs of Bailey's to her frosting, but I just went with 3, otherwise it might not have set up the way I wanted, but you do you!) 

 When I made them for friends, we quickly realized that you can't eat just one. I'm not even kidding. They're so rich and chocolatey, and the frosting is just SO good, you suddenly find yourself justifying why you absolutely DESERVE another one! I'm not exactly sure what kind of sorcery this is, but I'm certainly not gonna argue. They're just that good! In fact, I would go so far as to say they are some of the best brownies I have ever made. And you KNOW I've made literally hundreds, possibly even thousands of brownies. So that's really saying something! You should probably stop what you're doing and make TWO batches of them, like right now! You'll be glad you did!

Brownies:

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup Guinness Stout beer

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup salted butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs

1 cup flour

2/3 cup Hershey's unsweetened cocoa 

Heat oven to 350ºF. 

Grease a 9x9 square baking pan and line it with parchment paper. Set aside. Mix together the oil, Guinness, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Add butter and mix until well combined. Add eggs and mix until well combined. Combine flour and cocoa in another medium sized bowl. Slowly add dry ingredients to the egg mixture until well combined. Pour the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake for 35-38 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs. Allow brownies to cool completely before frosting.

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheese Icing:

1 8oz pkg cream cheese

1/4 lb (1 stick) salted butter

2 cups powdered sugar

3 tbs Bailey's Irish Cream

Whip the butter and cream cheese until creamy and well blended. Turn your mixer to its lowest setting, and slowly add the sugar until it's well incorporated. Add Irish cream. Turn your mixer back up to high and whip everything until light and fluffy. 

Tips:

-Yes, I know I piled the cream cheese frosting HIGH on top of the brownies so that the frosting is nearly as thick as the brownie. I'm not seeing this as a bad thing.

-I've discovered that one bottle of beer is exactly enough for two batches. Just sayin!

-And I know I've given this tip about a million times, but it's worth repeating every time:

When you line the pan with parchment, cut it a little longer than the pan so you have a little extra hanging over the edges. Then after you've cooled, frosted, and chilled your brownies, you can use the parchment as a sling to lift the whole batch out of the pan. Now you're able to make perfectly perfect cuts using a large knife. (Chrissy, bring me the big knife!) Your brownies will be much prettier, and you won't ruin your pan!

-Since you bake the batch in a square pan, I find it easiest to cut it in half in both directions, making 4 quadrants. Then do the same thing to each quadrant. You'll wind up with 16 perfectly square brownies.

Bailey's Irish Cream Pie

 Even though I don't drink very much or very often, there's one adult beverage that I happen to love, and that's Bailey's Irish Cream. (well, let's be honest, I love ANY Irish Cream, but Bailey's is my fave). So I like to find different things to bake with it. I've done Irish Cream Cake, Irish Cream Cupcakes with Irish Cream Frosting, I think I even did a cheesecake, once upon a time. So I figured why not do a pie this time?
 I found a few different recipes, but not every recipe was what I had in mind. There were lots of CHOCOLATE recipes, which are great and all, but then you can't really taste the Irish Cream. So I purposely decided to stick to a more vanilla version, which would let the Irish Cream flavor shine. Actually, as I was making this one, I wondered if the white chocolate would also overpower the flavor, but it absolutely doesn't. It's the perfect thing to enhance the Irish Creaminess of it all. (As you can see, I take these things very seriously. lol) It's super easy to make and it's a total do-ahead too. All things considered, this was exactly the pie I wanted to make. It's a slightly tweaked version of a recipe I found on a website called Saving Room For Dessert. It's so light and fluffy, it's like eating a cloud. It's the perfect thing to serve after your Corned Beef and Cabbage! Enjoy!


1 1/4 cups graham cracker or cookie crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
5 tbs unsalted butter, melted

1 1/3 cups white chocolate, chopped
1/3 cup Baileys Irish Cream
4 large egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 or 3 tbs Bailey's Irish Cream

white chocolate chips or curls for garnish, optional


For the crust:
Heat oven to 350ºF.
Mix ingredients together and press mixture firmly on the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool completely.

For the filling:
Melt chocolate and Irish Cream in a metal bowl over hot water, stirring constantly until creamy. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, and beat until stiff peaks hold their shape. Set aside. Using a mixer, whip 1 cup heavy cream until stiff. Gently fold the egg whites and whipped cream together. Gently fold the white chocolate mixture into egg white mixture, just until blended. Fill the cooled pie crust and chill while preparing the whipped cream topping.

For the topping:
Whip 1 cup heavy whipping cream until soft peaks form. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and whip until stiff. Fold in the Irish Cream. Spoon into pastry bag fitted with large star tip and pipe onto pie using a swirling motion. Decorate with white chocolate curls. Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving. For mousse instead of pie – spoon mixture into parfait glasses, top with whipped cream and decorate with white chocolate chips or curls.

Tips:
I used shortbread cookies for the crust, but you can use anything you like. Vanilla Wafers would be great. You could also use Golden Oreos, in which case you'd omit the sugar and butter. Just throw the Oreos into a food processor and pulse until they're crumbs, then pat into the pie plate as directed.
For a non-alcoholic version, you can use Irish Cream flavored nondairy coffee creamer instead of the liqueur.  For a flavor variation, you could do this entire recipe with Kahlua instead of Bailey's Irish Cream.

Bailey's Irish Cream Cake

 This year, for St. Patrick's Day, I knew I wanted to bake something using Bailey's Irish Cream: A, because I love it, and B, because I had just enough left in the bottle to use as an ingredient. I know I already have Bailey's Cupcakes (which are amazing, btw) but I was hoping for something a little different this time. Then I found this Bundt recipe and I thought, well ok then! Let's give it a try!
 Now, it's true that I only ever bake cakes from scratch, and rarely do I ever use a cake mix, but this recipe is an exception to that rule because it uses the cake mix as an ingredient instead of just mixing it up as directed on the box, know what I mean? That still counts as baking from scratch, doesn't it? I'm standing by it!
 This cake is easy to make and is SO tasty! The pecans get all nice and toasty and the glaze is just heavenly. Actually, the glaze is one of the things that drew me to the recipe in the first place. There are many recipes that just throw 1/4 cup of Irish cream into the batter, but this recipe has 3/4 cup in the cake and then another 1/4 cup glazed over the top. If we're having a Bailey's cake, I want to be able to taste the Bailey's! And I knew having the glaze would drive that home. I made it for a group of friends and several of the group came back for seconds! It's just that delicious.
 So if you're a Bailey's fan, you should give this cake a try. It's the perfect thing to have after you have your corned beef and cabbage, or any holiday meal! Enjoy!


Cake:
1 cup chopped pecans

1 (15.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

6 tbs flour

4 eggs

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

 Glaze:

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup water

1 cup white sugar
tiny pinch kosher salt

1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

 Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan. Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over bottom of pan. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, and flour. Mix in eggs, 1/4 cup water, oil and 3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur. Beat for 5 minutes at high speed. Pour batter over nuts in pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto the serving dish. Prick top and sides of cake. Spoon glaze over top and brush onto sides of cake. Allow to absorb glaze. Repeat until all glaze is used up. To make the glaze: In a saucepan, combine butter, 1/4 cup water, sugar, and salt. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup Irish cream.

Tips:

The original recipe called for an 18.25 oz cake mix. Since most brands of cake mix have been downsized to 15.25 oz, I have added 6 tbs of flour to the recipe. If you have an 18.25 oz cake mix, then by all means omit the flour. You could also purchase a second cake mix, add 6 tbs of it instead of just plain AP flour, and then save the rest in an airtight container for the next time.

Not a fan of pecans? Use a nut that you like! Hazelnuts? Walnuts? Anything is fine. Not a fan of nuts at all? Just leave 'em out!
Btw, I added a a few drops of rum extract to the batter. Why? Because I like it!

When you make the glaze, be sure to stir it constantly for the full 5 minutes. You don't want the sugar to burn. Also, be very careful when you add the Irish cream to the SCREAMING hot glaze. It'll bubble up quite a lot, kind of like when you make caramel. Be sure to use a pot that will accommodate that.

Bailey's Irish Cream Cupcakes

 Ok, so, ya know how I always say how awesome a new recipe is? I often use words like "bangin" or "slammin", or "to die for"....... Well, is there a word that means all of those things combined? Because, seriously, just wait until you taste these! They're insanely good! Jerry used the word AMAZING. Chris used the word OUTRAGEOUS. I'm running out of adjectives!
 If you like Irish Cream, then this is the dessert for you. You get a HUGE punch of Irish Cream flavor, they're moist and rich and just look how festive they are! You should make these the next time you go to a St. Patty's Day party. Or now. Now would be good too....


1/3 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
1/3 cup water
1 tbs milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Heat oven to 325F.
Line a cupcake pan with 12 paper liners. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. In a separate bowl, combine Irish cream, water and milk. In a third bowl, sift together the flour baking powder and salt. Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the wet mixture. Divide batter equally between the 12 cupcakes and bake for about 25 minutes or until top springs back when lightly tapped. Cool completely before frosting with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting.


Tip:
If you prefer a different brand of Irish cream, by all means, use it!! You could even try any of the flavored varieties of Bailey's Irish Cream. YUM!
If you're baking for a crowd, simply double the recipe! More is more!

Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

If you're tired of the same old butter cream frosting, try this one! 
It's different and fun and perfect for your St Patty's Day baked goodies!

8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 tbs Bailey's Irish Cream
2 tsp cooled brewed coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa
2 cups powdered sugar


Mix all ingredients together in order listed until smooth and creamy. Spread on your favorite cake, cupcakes, or Bailey's Irish Cream Cupcakes.

Tip:
Store unused frosting in the fridge in an airtight container.