Kahlua Cupcakes with Kahlua Cream Cheese Frosting

Cupcake Ingredients
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 eggs [separated]
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup kahlua
2 1/4 cup ap flour
3 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt.

Cupcake Directions

• Cream together butter, cocoa, sugar and vanilla until light and creamy. Add egg yolks and beat for four minutes.
• Mix water and Kahlua in a small bowl.
• Combine Dry Ingredients [Flour, Baking Soda and Salt]
• Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, alternating with Kahlua mixture. Mix until fully combined.

In seperate bowl, beat egg whites on high until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in remaining sugar to make a meringue. With a rubber spatula, fold meringue into cupcake batter.

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes at 350.

Frosting Ingredients
1 1/2 Stick butter
1/4 Cup Milk
1 Tsp Vanilla
2 Cups Powdered Sugar [sifted]

Frosting Directions

• Beat butter until light and fluffy, scrape down bowl
• Add powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Beat until fluffy.

I was totally heartbroken when I glanced through the oven door and saw that at around eighteen minutes the cupcakes were already fallen. I questioned what possibly could have happened to have such a annoyance occur and make the poor cupcakes collapse within themselves. The only conclusion that I came up with was that possibly the baking soda was bad, then I thought, can baking soda really go bad?

Then after thinking it over for a while, I realized that it was my own idiocity that caused the cupcakes to fail. My grandma always has a conniption about spillage falling into the bottom of the oven, so I thought that I would be a genius and put a baking sheet on the bottom of the oven to catch any spills, of course at that point I neglected to realize about how the air rotates in the oven and with the pan blocking the air from the bottom, it couldn't circulate around the oven properly. I also failed to realize that you can't put a teflon pan on the bottom of the oven because it would melt to the oven.. oops.

It was a bummer that I was fresh out of chocolate, otherwise I could have thrown together a quick ganache and plop them on the fallen arches of the cupcakes and then smooth the frosting on top. [I saw that on a blog once, I forget where but big props to the person that thought of that] So instead i just settled for plopping the frosting on top, even though it had gotten pathetically flat.

I was slightly annoyed and irritated already at the point of frosting, so I conferred with the baby about what color frosting that he wanted to use and let him help me with the frosting. At least he had a blast.