Pink Champagne Cupcakes
Makes 2 dozen cupcakes.
CUPCAKES
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
6 egg whites
3 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2-3 drops red food coloring (instead of food colouring I threw in 4-8 frozen raspberries)
1 cup champagne (I used extra dry Prosecco, but the recipe recommends sweet)
CREAM CHEESE ICING
8 oz (250mg) cream cheese, room temp, cut into cubes
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cool, cut into cubes
1/2 c white sugar (I can't eat powdered sugar, but you could use that, too)
1/4 c champagne
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
PREPARE BATTER
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin tins by lightly buttering or using muffin cups.
In a medium sized bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt.
In a mixing bowl beat together butter and sugar for 3-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, then beat in egg whites one at a time. Add a few drops of food coloring (or in my case, throw in the frozen raspberries) until the batter is the color of your preference.
Add in flour mixture and champagne in three alternating additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Pour batter into cupcake liners, filling ⅔ full. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
PREPARE ICING
In a mixer on medium speed, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Reduce speed and add the sugar. Increase speed again for about 2-4 minutes, until sugar well combined and mixture is smooth. Reduce speed and add the champagne and vanilla extract until just combined; overmixing at this point will make the icing too runny.
NOTE: My icing tasted a bit too much of champagne (I know!) so in future I would reduce to 1/8 c or even omit, depending on how champagne-y my cupcakes tasted.
