Fireball Cupcakes with Rum Chata Frosting

This is a first for me. I have never cooked or baked with alcohol, but I was inspired by a Facebook food video from Delish. The recipe was for Fireball Poke Cake (I’ll include the link to this recipe at the end of this post.) and I knew I had to turn it into cupcakes. I’m not sure why, but I absolutely adore cupcakes and I love doing those more than actual cakes. I have to say, my adaptation turned out pretty well.

For the actual cupcakes, I just followed the recipe from Delish for the cake part. It’s super simple- just use a cake mix and substitute half the water for Fireball whiskey and add a little cinnamon. Instead of putting it in a cake pan, I just poured it into a cupcake pan with liners.

Once I had the cupcakes baked, I let them cool and I brain stormed. If you choose to fill the cupcakes, they need to be hollowed out. I’m sure this isn’t an original hack, but I thought of this while I was rummaging around looking for the filling tip. I used the opposite end of the filling tip and I placed it in the center of the cupcake, applied pressure as I twisted it down, and brought it up with a slight scooping motion to get the centers out.

Next came the filling. It was just an idea I had and it turned out amazing! I could seriously eat this filling with a spoon. It was beyond awesome. I used my favorite trick to make homemade caramel sauce out of condensed milk by completely submerging it in water in a slow cooker and cooking it on low for 7 hours and letting it cool. It makes the most amazing caramel sauce ever. For this, I blended it with vanilla pudding mix and milk. This is definitely going to be a filling I use in more recipes!

So the following baking hacks I cannot take credit for. I don’t know who to give credit to for these other than “the internet,” but if you haven’t heard of these yet, I photographed them just for you. This made my life so much easier and the cleanup so much easier as well.

I hate messing with piping bags! Honestly, I’m not a fan of piping either. It looks lovely, but it’s a mess and I don’t have a steady hand, so when I pipe, I have to use some serious hacks. Luckily, filling doesn’t have to look good- I just like to get around the mess. Using a disposable bag with a hole cut in it is the best hack ever! Just make sure you don’t cut the hole too big so the tip falls out.

This is the first time I’ve used this hack but I’m in love! I used it multiple times in this recipe and it was so easy and mess free. Just get your tip set in your bag and drape the bag over a large glass, tip facing down and almost touching the bottom. Use a spatula to get your filling or frosting in there, and then go to town!

Once they’re all filled, it’s time to frost. You can use Fireball for the frosting too, but I decided on Rum Chata. I didn’t have enough Rum Chata to get the consistency I wanted, so I had to use a small bit of Fireball also. I modified the recipe for the blog, but you can do whatever you like. As always, just add slowly. It’s so much easier to thin it out little by little than to have to thicken it up. It turned out yummy!

I used my handy ziploc bag trick again and I filled it in a glass, but this time, I used a large star tip instead of a round tip. As I said, I’m not awesome at piping but a star tip is forgiving and it makes the cupcakes look “professional” in my opinion. Also, I held onto the part where the tip came out of the bag just so I didn’t accidentally squeeze the tip right out of the bag and end up with a big mess. I started on the outside and went in a circle, slowly working my way inwards. When I got to the the center, I gave one last squeeze and picked up the tip to go onto the next cupcake.

I’m pretty proud of them and I can’t wait to present them to my friends! I haven’t tried one yet, but my best friend did and he told me to hide them from him. I take that as a good sign. Also, I must say that this recipe made 17 cupcakes. Yes, I am aware at how weird that is, but that’s what happened. I filled the cupcake liner about 3/4 of the way full (which is a little more than the traditional 2/3) but they didn’t overflow and I like the way they turned out. So for this recipe, 17 it is. Feel free to modify it and try it with filling the liners a little less if you want to try and squeeze a few more cupcakes out of the recipe.

I haven’t done cupcakes in so long and these were a blast! They would be perfect for a 21st birthday or a girls night. I definitely plan to do these again and I would love to experiment with using different liquors. I may not drink very often, but I can get cupcake wasted!

Here is the link to the original recipe: https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a58455/fireball-poke-cake-recipe/

Fireball Cupcakes with Rum Chata Frosting

Cake:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1/2c. water
• 1/2c. Fireball whiskey
• 3 eggs
• 1/2c. oil
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Filling:

• 1 box instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 1/2c. milk
• 1 can of condensed milk, turned into caramel

Frosting:

• 2 sticks butter, room temperature
• 3 1/2c. powdered sugar
• 1/4c. Rum Chata, plus more if desired
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and mix all the cake ingredients together until smooth. Line a cupcake pan with liners and fill 3/4 of the way full with the batter. Bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Bake remaining batter and allow all cupcakes to cool while you mix the filling and frosting.

For the filling, beat the milk and pudding mix together with a hand mixer for one minute. Add in the full can of caramel and beat for another minute or two until the mixture is smooth and fully incorporated. Allow to set up in the fridge for at least 5 minutes before using.

Use the wide end of a filling tip to hollow out the center of the cupcakes. Prepare a decorating bag with a wide round tip and put the filling in the bag. Squeeze a generous amount into each cupcake, being careful not to let it overflow too much.

Mix all frosting ingredients together with a hand mixer until the frosting is fluffy and peaky. You can add additional liquid if it is too stiff. Once you have it at the desired consistency, fill a cake decorating bag fitted with a wide star tip and pipe the frosting on in a circular motion, working inwards.

Store the cupcakes in the refrigerator and enjoy getting cupcake wasted!