Shamrock Cupcakes

St. Patrick’s Day Irishfetti Cupcakes

With the greatest holiday in the world approaching, Dana and I decided to make homemade Irishfetti cupcakes.  These are similar to those oh-so-fun-fetti cupcakes that you buy in the store, but they are homemade and loaded with shamrock sprinkles.  Yep, a nice white cake full of white and green shamrock sprinkles.  Granted this recipe works with any sprinkles, but this recipe works the best for St. Patrick’s Day.

Irishfetti Cupcakes

As you can see the green shamrock sprinkles add a colorful addition to the already delicious cupcakes.

Irishfetti Cupcakes – (From Joy of Baking)

  • 1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup granulated white sugar, divided
  • 2 large eggs, separated
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 1 jar of shamrock sprinkles, or any sprinkles you desire

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites.  Cover and let rest till both reach room temperature. At the same time remove the butter from the fridge and let it come to room temperature.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt over a piece of wax paper or parchment.   This will allow you to easily funnel the ingredients into the mixing bowl when it comes time to add the dry ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

In a stand mixer or by hand beat the butter until it is soft and fluffy (roughly 1 – 2 minutes).  Add 3/4 cup of sugar and continue to beat.  When light and fluffy add the egg yolks one at a time.  Beat each one into the batter completely before adding the next one.  Scrape down the bowl to make sure that all of the ingredients are added.  Next mix in the vanilla extract.

Beat in the sugar

Once that is all incorporated alternately add the flour and the milk to the mixture.  By alternating you can control the amount of dry ingredients so that you don’t have a white cloud forming in your kitchen from all of the flour.

Add the flour

Once all of the flour is incorporated hand fold-in the whole jar of sprinkles.

Add the sprinkles

I know it sounds and looks like a lot, but trust me, it is the perfect amount.  You can use the mixer for this, but I find that you break less of the sprinkles by mixing it by hand.  Set this bowl aside.

The Start of the Fun

In a clean mixing bowl add both egg whites.  Attach the whisk attachment to your mixer.  Beat the egg whites on high until they start to foam.  At this point add the cream of tartar.  Turn the mixer back to high and beat until soft peaks form.  Then gradually start to add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar in to the egg whites.  Continue to beat on high until hard peaks form.

Fold the egg whites into the batter.  Do this by hand or else you will deflate the egg whites and reduce the amount of lift the cupcakes will have.  Make sure not to over mix the batter.

Fold in the egg whites

Evenly fill 24 muffing cups and then bake at 350 degrees for 14-16 minutes.  I find that using a scoop is the easiest way to portion the cupcakes.  You can find these at any kitchen store.

Fill the muffin cups

Cook until the tops look just cooked and a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly.  Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let cool completely before frosting.

Let cool in the pan

Frost with your favorite frosting and garnish with sprinkles or colored sugar. See the Vanilla Frosting recipe below if you need one. I used a tiny shamrock cookie cutter as an outline and filled the center with sugar to make shamrocks on the cupcakes.  It worked pretty good.  A stencil would have worked a lot better, but you have to use what you have.

Shamrock Cupcakes

Overall these were some amazing cupcakes.  They were soft and tender will a nice amount of sprinkles throughout.  The only real problem was that the shamrock sprinkles that I used were half white sprinkles and they did not show up too well in the finished cupcakes.  However, you could taste them.

Easy Vanilla Frosting

  • 1 1/4 sticks (10 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 2-3 tsp milk

Using a mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy.  Slowly add the confectioners’ sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating until smooth after each addition. Add the vanilla and 2 teaspoons milk. Beat at high speed until fluffy, adding an additional 1 teaspoon of milk if necessary.

Rex

Rex is an avid griller, barbecuer and bacon enthusiast. He is the Pitmaster for the Rex BBQ competition team. Rex was also featured on the TV show American Grilled. If you have any questions or wish to have Rex decode your favorite dish, click on the ASK REX link in the menu above.

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