Pink Champagne Cupcakes

So I promised more baked goods, right?  Well here's a pretty simple, basic recipe for cupcakes that I have modified slightly to combine two of my absolute favorite things in the world: the color pink and champagne.  I started with this recipe for vanilla cupcakes by Ina Garten (everyone close to me knows that I ultimately aspire to be a combination of Ina Garten, Giada De Laurentiis, and Martha Stewart) and made modifications to change them into pink champagne cupcakes with pink champagne buttercream frosting.  This is also a tribute to my dear friend Megan Doumani who graduated from ASU this spring and had a delicious pink champagne cake for her grad party.  


Pink Champagne Cupcakes


Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour (for most cupcakes I choose to substitute cake flour for a more delicate final product)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup room temperature butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup pink champagne (the cheaper and sweeter, the better)
6 egg whites


Directions:

To start off this recipe (and most cupcake recipes in general) sift all of your dry ingredients together.  For this one, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.  Set aside.

In separate, larger bowl, cream your room temperature butter and granulated sugar together.  I like to beat the butter and sugar for a while until it is lighter yellow in color and the sugar is completely incorporated with the butter.  Once this is complete, you will alternate adding the dry ingredients and the pink champagne to the butter/sugar mixture in about three different batches.  Some people choose to continue to use the hand mixer or a Kitchen Aid mixer because it is easy.  I prefer to hand mix my ingredients at this point with a spatula.  By using a spatula and mixing until JUST combined keeps the batter very tender and the resulting cupcakes light and soft.

The next step is to beat the egg whites in a separate bowl.  When separating your eggs be sure to keep all yolk and shell out of the whites.  Then beat the whites until stiff, glossy peaks form.  This will take a while but remain patient.  Also be careful not to over beat.  You will know you have over beaten the whites if they start to get watery and separate.

Once you have beaten your egg whites, use your spatula once again and add them to your pink base batter.  Carefully fold in so that you don't deflate the egg whites.  The resulting batter should be light and airy once you have incorporated all of the egg whites.

Fill cupcake pans about 2/3 full of your batter.  This recipe yields approximately 20 cupcakes.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until a cake tester is inserted and comes out clean.

Here are my resulting cupcakes.  I used Andre Pink Sparkling Wine (because it comes out of California it cannot be called "champagne" officially...little known fact that for champagne to be real champagne it must be made from champagne grapes from the Champagne region of France).  If you really want the cupcakes to be pink, you may want to add a few drops of red food coloring to get your batter the appropriate color, depending on the champagne/wine you use.  It doesn't affect the flavor at all.


Pink Champagne Buttercream Frosting Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 cups room temperature butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons pink champagne
Red food coloring (optional)

All buttercream recipes are pretty much the same.  Beat all of the ingredients together until well combined.  The consistency of your frosting is also dependent on the environment you are cooking in.  If it is dry you may have to add more liquid (champagne) to thin it out.  If it is too thin, you can add more powdered sugar.  Buttercream frostings are very forgiving so do not panic if the consistency seems off.

And here are my final cupcakes!  Because I do not have pastry bags and tips I simply put all of my frosting in a large ziploc bag and cut one of the corners off on the bottom.  I find that it works very well as a pastry bag in a pinch!


Enjoy!