Pink Champagne and Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red velvet mini cupcake with pink cream cheese frosting (on left) and pink champagne mini cupcake with pink champagne frosting (right)

As most of you probably know, I recently got married just a few short months ago and I am now “officially” part of a very close and very large family, with loads of cousins. Our weekends as of late of been filled with good times celebrating cousin’s birthdays, graduations, anything we can celebrate. This past weekend was my new sister-in-law Lisette’s 30th birthday and her sister Yezenia had a fabulous idea to throw her a pink themed birthday party and get all the women of the family together for it.

We had a blast listening to Ricky Martin, discussing the answers to 20 questions like, “Who was your first crush,” and “What is the one thing you got in the most trouble for.” The decor was amazing with little mason jars of old timey pink gumballs, lollipops and chocolates.

Yezenia called me and said she had been looking all over the city for pink cupcakes but was wondering if I could make them instead. Of course, I love any excuse to bake for other people so I consulted the all knowing google and found 2 delicious cupcake recipes. The one for Pink Champagne Cupcakes was super easy and turned out much better than I thought it would. The red velvet recipe is to date the best red velvet I have ever made (not to toot my own horn or anything) but it was. I made them in mini form just to get that extra “ahhh” factor too!

Pink Champagne Cupcakes
From Betty Crocker

Ingredients
Cupcakes
1 box of Betty Crocker Supermoist white cake mix
1 1/4 cups champagne
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 egg whites
4 to 5 drops red food coloring (I substituted pink here)

Champagne Frosting
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softenend
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup champagne
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 to 5 drops red food coloring (I substituted pink here)

Garnish
Pink decorator sugar crystals and edible pink pearls if you want them

Heat oven to 350 degrees (325 for dark or nonstick pan). Place paper baking cups in each of 24 regular size muffin cups (you can sub out for mini cupcakes if you like).

In a large bowl, combine dry cake mix and champagne. Add oil, eggs and food color. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

Bake 17 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

In medium bowl, beat frosting ingredients with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Frost cupcakes. Sprinkle with pink sugar and pearls.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

Get the SkinnyNutrition Information per cupcake: Calories 230, Total Fat 8g (Saturated Fat 3.5g), Sodium 180mg, Total Carbs 38g, Fiber 0g, Sugars 29g, Protein 1 g

Red Velvet Cake
From Smitten Kitchen, www.smittenkitchen.com

This recipe is for a 3-layer red velvet cake, I halved the recipe and made mini cupcakes, about 36)

Ingredients
1 tbsp unsalted butter
3 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (not dutch process)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cups canola oil
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp (3 oz) red food coloring or 1 tsp red gel food coloring dissolved in 6 tbsp of water
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 tsp white vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place teaspoon of butter in each of 3 round 9-inch layer cake pans and place pans in oven for a few minutes until butter melts. Remove pans from oven, brush interior bottom and sides of each with butter and line bottoms with parchment.

Whisk cake flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl.

Place oil and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until well-blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. With machine on low, very slowly add red food coloring. (Take care, it may splash). Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.

Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds.

Divide batter among pans, place in oven and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pans for 20 minutes. Then remove from pans, flip layers over and peel off parchment. Cool completely before frosting.

Cupcake variation: This recipe adapts well to cupcakes and yields about 35 regular size cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes about 6 cups

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter room temperature
3 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Place cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl. With a handheld electric mixer, beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat, on low speed to combine. If too soft, chill until slightly stiff, about 10 minutes, before icing.

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