Vanilla Kirsch Cupcakes and Vanilla Galliano Cupcakes

So, I did not include a picture of these. There is a reason.....They were not particularly aesthetically pleasing. The visual was not indicative of the taste, however.

I adapted a vanilla cupcake recipe from the Australian Women's Weekly cupcake book. Initially I combined all of the ingredients in the recipe, then split it in two, and finally folded in the extras afterwards.

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
125g butter, softened and chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract (I actually split half a vanilla pod.)
2/3 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 cup milk

Combine butter, vanilla, sugar, eggs, sifted flour, and milk in a bowl. Beat on low speed until all ingredients are combined. Increase speed to medium and beat about 3 minutes. Place in cupcake cases and bake about 20 minutes at 180 degrees C.

The lowdown:
1. I followed a different method for mixing the ingredients. I creamed the butter and sugar until really pale. I then beat the eggs slightly with a fork in a separate bowl and added them to the sugar mixture very slowly while beating. I added half the flour, then the milk, and then the rest of the flour.
2. After splitting the base recipe, I added about 1/2 cup of Kirsch liqueur and about 1/4 cup of cherry juice to one half and about 1/2 cup of Galliano liqueur to the other half. The cherry cupcakes turned kind of a grayish color which was not appealing. I would leave the cherry juice out next time, but they tasted nice. The Galliano cupcakes were perfect. I would actually even add a little more Galliano to these and maybe a little more vanilla.
3. My oven cooked both in about 18 minutes.
4. I made some chocolate ganache for the Galliano cupcakes and added a little Kirsch and cherry juice into some previously-made cream cheese frosting for the Kirsch cupcakes. I stuffed up the ganache as the boiling water touched the bottom of bowl, but it ended up setting a lot nicer than I thought it would. What they say is true about chocolate hating water!!