The beginning of my friendship with Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, the powerhouse behind wildly successful culinary blog The Kitchn, was steeped in Kahlua. She was probably in the fifth grade. It’s a fun story.
My boutique PR firm had Kahlua as a client for many years. Pretty yummy work; our best PR efforts were culinary-focused. Over time, our library of Kahlua food recipes grew to more than 500. I still have the whole collection (and promise to share plenty), but I wasn’t the person who developed them. Part of my job included dreaming up Kahlua recipe concepts and themes. I then hired the incredibly talented and calm Karen Gillingham, Sara Kate’s mommy, to bring the ideas to life. And she had lots of ideas herself.
Before freelancing, Karen was a food editor with the LA Times. We are both home economists, so I knew her from that circle of food pros. Karen was perfect to work with after I first endured a nut case of a recipe developer and stylist inherited with the account. Quickly, I disinherited that whack job and landed Karen because I was in awe of her ability and style. Did I mention she was calm?
Long hours together results in lots of family talk. Little Sara Kate was an engaging, freckle faced cutie patootie. Seeing her now as a businesswoman and mother, Karen should probably write a parenting book.
Besides creating recipes, Karen and I shot volumes of food photos together. On occasion, Sara Kate was there; her mom claims I gave her a straw hat prop which she hung on the wall in their family cabin. If she still has that hat, I won’t tell the Kahlua people.
Time to think about baking oooey chocolaty Kahlua things. Here is a Karen-created recipe, great for grownup fun like a Hollywood Bowl picnic.
Kahlua Chocolate Cupcakes with Kahlua Buttercream Frosting
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3 eggs, separated
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3/4 cup granulated sugar
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1/2 cup butter
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1 cup light brown sugar, packed
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2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
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1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
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1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
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3/4 cup strong cold coffee
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3/4 cup Kahlua
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Kahlua Buttercream Frosting (recipe follows)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat egg whites until frothy; then beat in sugar until stiff peaks form. Set aside. Cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg yolks one at a time. Sift flour, cocoa and baking soda together. Add to creamed mixture alternately with coffee and Kahlua; blend well. Fold egg whites into batter. Fill prepared cupcake cups to 2/3 full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove cupcakes from tins and cool on rack completely before frosting. Makes 2 dozen cupcakes.
Kahlua Buttercream Frosting
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6 Tbsp butter
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1 lb. powdered sugar
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3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
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4 Tbsp. Kahlua
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2-3 Tbsp. hot coffee
In large bowl, cream together butter and powdered sugar. Add cocoa powder, Kahlua and hot coffee. Beat until smooth. Frosts 2 dozen cupcakes.
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I made these this past weekend and they were soooooo good! I made the recipe “as is” and they came out great. Once they were done, I added some Heath Bits O’ Brickle on top of the frosting. Everyone at the party loved them!
I know this is late in coming, but I made these delicious cupcakes and they were absolutely to die for good. They are our newest Post and we’ve linked back to your site. Thank You for the most awesome cupcakes!!
Cyndy
Bunny’s Warm Oven
Hi Laura, very sorry about your results AND SOOOOO sorry to disappoint! Kahlua DOES taste great, and sounds like you were hoping for big Kahlua flavor. The recipes we made for the Kahlua company were often subtle in Kahlua flavor because a lot of people rejected hyper-boozy tasting foods. But I thank you for pointing out the silicone cup problem — readers, this recipe was developed before those were available, not tested for those. And I don’t own the silicone cups, either.
One trick I would recommend if, after you taste a cupcake and want MORE Kahlua flavor is to poke the baked goods with a bamboo skewer and drizzle Kahlua right over. NOT TOO MUCH, however (i.e. no more than two teaspoons per cupcake). Then frost.
This recipe looked so yummy, but unfortunately the results were very disappointing. I made these for a Mexican feast for 10 people, and we ended up throwing them out and buying a last-minute boxed cake mix instead
I baked the majority of the cupcakes in silicone cups, and they completely stuck to the cups and could not be removed without falling apart. (The ones that I baked in regular muffin tins came out intact though.)
A bigger problem is that they had almost NO flavor whatsoever. They weren’t’ chocolatey or kahlua-y enough. Very bland. I was able to make the frosting more flavorfull by adding ~3 times as much chocolate, coffee and kahlua as the recipe calls for, and then we used this frosting on the boxed cake…
I wanted to like these cupcakes, but I (and my guests) were very unimpressed.
Kahlua goodness!!! So cute!
Wow, these look amazing. I was just reading a white paper on new food trends for 2010 and beyond and it reports an upsurge of chocolate and coffee infused desserts, candies and other baked goods, since consumers are definitely searching for that one product that will fulfill their need for chocolate, energy/alertness. These little jewels would certainly fit the bill.
Thanks for sharing, will definitely try this recipe!