A Guest Post by Maggie
This guest post comes to you from my friend Maggie. Maggie and I were roommates at Elizabethtown College. I had the privilege of being a bridesmaid in her beautiful wedding last year. We share a mutual love of baking and she has quite possibly the biggest sweet tooth of anyone I know. When I started the blog, I immediately went to Maggie and asked her if she would be interesting in writing some guest posts. Maggie and her husband Preston live in Lambertville, NJ. I love the idea of champagne cupcakes - they just sound so fun and festive to me. I've always wanted to make them but never seem to have any champagne left over around the house. My husband and I recently celebrated our first wedding anniversary and there was a left over bottle of champagne that needed to be put to use! This was the perfect time to make the cupcakes. Even better, it was peach champagne. I love all peach flavored things and wait all year for my mom's peach pie (she only uses fresh, local, peaches with a cookie crumb crust. It is absolutely amazing). So I knew it was time for champagne cupcakes.
Another thing prompted me to make these cupcakes: This past Friday, on my lunch hour, I ran into the grocery store to get a few things to make dinner for guests that evening. As I was running to grab everything I needed, I passed by the produce and saw a HUGE box of strawberries for only five dollars. It seemed like a great purchase at the time. I realized how much four pounds of strawberries was when I got back to my office and showed my coworker. Her semi-confused stare gave the indication I would need to figure out what to do with all these strawberries and quickly!
So, I decided to add them to my peach champagne cupcakes to make Strawberry Peach Champagne Cupcakes. Doesn't that sound like a great summer cupcake? I couldn't help but tint the frosting pink...it makes the cupcakes look like summer roses. Enjoy!
Strawberry Peach Champagne Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from: Sprinkle Bakes
Cupcakes:
1/2 cup butter softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup peach champagne
5 large or 8-9 small/medium strawberries
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and mix. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup champagne and 1/2 cup sour cream (mixture will fizz and bubble a little). Add flour and champagne mixture alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Batter will be thick. Cut up the strawberries into small pieces and fold into the batter.
Fill cupcake papers with 1/4 cup level measures of batter. Bake for 17-22 minutes. Set aside.
Frosting:
1 cup plus 1 tbsp. peach champagne
1 stick of butter softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
Red food coloring
Strawberries for decoration
Place 1 cup of champagne in a small saucepan. Simmer over medium-high heat until reduced to 2 tablespoons. Transfer to a small bowl or condiment cup and allow to cool.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, cream softened butter and powdered sugar together. Once the frosting is thick and fluffy, pour in the reduced 2 tbsp. champagne plus 1 tbsp. champagne from the bottle and mix well. Add more confectioner's sugar as needed until the consistency of the frosting is thick and fluffy. Add in a few drops of red food coloring and mix. Add more drops as needed to achieve the desired shade of pink. Frost cupcakes and then slice strawberries and arrange on the frosting.
