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Irish Coffee Cupcakes with Bailey’s Chocolate Filling are healthy-ish and delicious! The whole wheat pastry flour keeps them light, the buttermilk keeps them moist, and the ganache makes them decadent!

I had such high aspirations to bake 2 types of cupcakes this weekend. Didn’t happen. Surprising I know. I was lazy this weekend. I thought, “I have tomorrow, too! We took Monday off.” Yeah. Still didn’t happen. I baked the cupcakes and let them cool. And then…nothing. no ganache, no icing….no powdered sugar? What? How is that possible?

Can I just say…I FAILED at making powdered sugar. I mean, it should be easy. You put sugar in a blender and voila! It’s powder! Not so much. I think that’s why I was a sloth about baking cupcakes: no powdered sugar ergo…no icing. And I didn’t have enough cream cheese to make icing for both batches. And you STILL need powdered sugar. In any event.

I baked these Irish Coffee Cupcakes Sunday and finished them up Monday. There’s a WHOLE other story about Monday that I’ll share tomorrow…. It was a serious up and down day. At least it ended on an up with these cupcakes.

Combine brown sugar, sugar, and applesauce in a large mixing bowl. Beat with a hand mixer until well blended and the sugars have dissolved.

Add the coffee, instant coffee, buttermilk, and egg substitute and beat until well blended.

Combine flour, whole wheat pastry flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small mixing bowl.

Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and stir until combined.

Line 12 muffin cups with cupcake liners. Full 3/4 full of batter and bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan 5 minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the ganache, combine the chopped chocolate, Baileys, and fat free half and half in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stirring constantly, heat until the chocolate is smooth and completely melted. Pour into a small mixing bowl and refrigerate until almost set. Fill a pastry bag with 1 cup of ganache. Reserve the other ganache for the icing.

Core the cupcakes saving the tops for later.

Fill 3/4 the way full with the ganache.

Top with the reserved cupcake tops.

Combine the powdered sugar, Baileys, remaining ganache, and ICBINB in a medium mixing bowl. Using the whisk attachment, combine until smooth and creamy. Add the fat free half and half if needed to make a nice creamy consistency for icing the cupcakes.

Fill a pastry bag with the icing and a star shaped tip. Pipe icing over the cupcakes making sure to cover the ganache filled hole.