Recipe: Baileys and Walnut Cupcakes

I am mostly drawn towards coffee and walnut cupcakes but this time I left out the coffee in the cake batter and used Baileys in the buttercream.  Good idea - yes?

For the cake batter I prefer to use salted butter or to make them lighter substitute some of the butter with margarine.  I always use unsalted butter for my buttercream, it's all down to individual taste, and I know salted this and that is everywhere, but I don't think salted buttercream will ever be for me.

The recipe below is for 9 cupcakes - cupcake cases vary and these are medium size to allow for rising but leaving enough room for the buttercream topping.

This month I need to concentrate on eating less sugar, but failed, I grazed on seeds and then ate a slice of Christmas Cake........

You will need:  9 muffin cases and a muffin tin

For the cupcakes:

175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
175g self raising flour
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g chopped walnuts

For the Icing:

250g softened unsalted butter
500g sieved icing sugar
1 tbsp Baileys
Walnut halves to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC.
2. Add all the cake ingredients in a bowl and beat for two minutes with an electric mixer. Stir in the walnuts.
3. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases.
4. Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked.  Cool for 10 minutes and then place on a rack to cool.
5. For the icing: beat the icing sugar and butter together until fluffy.  Stir in the Baileys.
6. Pipe or spread the buttercream over the cupcakes and top with walnut halves.
7. Can be frozen decorated.