Weekend Cooking.. "Irish Potato" Cupcakes

It is St. Patrick's day as I write this, the feast day of the patron Saint of Ireland.
And I am having a wee problem.
Which will become apparent as the post continues.

I made some vegetable soup and got some Irish Brown Bread that I made before out of the freezer.
I decided to experiment and make corned beef in the slow cooker.
I am on a slow cooker kick...what can I say.
I looked for recipes and they were all over the map.
So I decided to just go for it.

Put some roughly chopped onions and carrots and rutabaga and red potatoes in the slow cooker.
Added about 1 cup of beer.
Placed the corned beef on top of the veg.
Cooked on high for one hour, then reduced to low for another 6 hours.

The corned beef was delicious, fork tender.
The rutabaga and carrots held up well, the potatoes were a bit over cooked. Next time I would steam them with the cabbage.
The onions pretty much disappeared into the liquid, which was extremely flavorful.

I had, as tradition holds, cabbage with it, but I did not cook that in the slow cooker as I mentioned.
I cut it into about 1 inch pieces and steamed it for about 10  minutes and then finished it in a saute pan with a knob of butter.
The Irish love knobs of butter.

But the problem I referred to.
The only beer I had on hand for the cup I put in with the corned beef was a 750 ml bottle of Belgian Ale. About 8/10th of a quart.
Once I opened it, I had to finish it.
Right?
I could not waste it.
For me that is a lot of beer
I need a nap now.

I will leave you with dessert. A recipe for an "Irish Potato" Cupcake.
As you may know, an Irish Potato is a round coconut candy, covered with cinnamon to look like a potato.
This is a coconut cupcake...also topped with cinnamon and does not look quite like a potato, but I thought it was pretty good.
{update..I took a tray of them to work and my co-workers seemed to like them a good deal as well. But then, they will eat  just about anything}

Coconut Cupcakes
(adapted from cake2cake)

1 box white Duncan Hines cake mix

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

¾ tsp. salt

1 1/3 cups water

2 TBS. vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. coconut extract

1 cup sour cream

                                                                                       4 large egg whites

                                                                                       2 ½ cups finely chopped sweetened coconut

Whisk together all dry ingredients. 

Process coconut in food processor to make more fine.  In another bowl, mix all the remaining ingredients and then add to the dry. Beat with mixer for 2 minutes.

Fill cupcakes pans until ½ filled (you only want cupcake to just come to top of the paper when baked) and bake 17-20 minutes at 325 degrees, until tester come out clean.

Top with  Dickinson Coconut Cream Curd   with a small icing spatula and dust with cinnamon.

Ok, the problem was, I could not find the coconut cream locally. It was too late to look further, or order online, and I was feeling pretty lazy at this point, so I bought a can of Cream Cheese Icing. {{shame}} But it tasted pretty bland, so I whipped in 8 oz. of additional cream cheese and then I was happy with it. Dust with cinnamon and they were quite nice.
But the ones at cake2cake were way cuter. 

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This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."
Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

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