Sparkling Champagne Cupcakes and My First Blogiversary

Today is my first Blogiversary.  I try to say it like "oh it's no big deal" but I'm not cool enough to pull that off.  I'M REALLY FREAKING EXCITED!  When I first started blogging it was going to be a little hobby that I picked up to document my first year in the kitchen as a married woman.  I knew I was going to need to find something to occupy my time that I spent for the past year planning our wedding. This would be the perfect outlet.  

Now, looking back I laugh at my posts and pictures.  Although I have absolutely no formal training in the kitchen or behind the camera I have come a long way.  I have a long way to go but I'm really excited about the future of this blog.  It makes me so happy to have an outlet for my creativity and love for cooking.  It has also connected me with so many fun people and a community I never knew existed.  I squeal when I receive a comment or email from readers.  Like oh, you want to ask ME a question or you really like a recipe enough to comment on MY blog?  Omg.  Again, I'm not cool enough to pull any of this off.  

I just have to say THANK YOU to everyone who has supported me and read the blog in the last year.  It has been a fun ride and I'm so excited to see where this all goes.  

With that being said, ummm, let's make and eat some SPARKING CHAMPAGNE CUPCAKES!  Wawa weee wa!  As soon as I saw these cupcakes on Sprinke Bakes blog, I knew I had to make them for my first blogiversary.  It was a real no brainer--champagne + cupcakes= celebration, baby.  Cheers.  

Musical Selection: Free by: Donavan Frankenreiter. This song came up while I was drafting this post and made me happy....just like these cupcakes.

Start by adding butter and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer

Cream together until fluffy

Add the eggs one.at.a.time.

Mix until light colored and fluffy

Add vanilla and mix again

In a seperate bowl combine flour

Baking soda

Baking powder

And salt

Stir with a whisk

Then comes the fun part.  Pour yourself a glass of champagne...

In a different bowl add sour cream

And sacrifice a bit of your champagne (from the bottle)

Stir to combine. It will look kind of funky but, rest assured, it will be okay.

Next, add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the eggs and sugar.  Mix...

Add half of the sour cream champagne mixture...mix...and repeat this process.  Flour, sour cream mixture, flour.

Until it looks silky smooth and thick like this.  Yum.  This batter is heavenly.

Using a measuring cup (1/4) or cookie/muffin scoop, add batter into paper lined cups.  Bake the cupcakes for about 17 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven.  Just until they are golden brown and spring back when you press gently in the middle.

While the cupcakes are baking, work on the Champagne Pastry Cream.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Add heavy cream (yes again, heavy cream) to a bowl.

To the cream, add some corn starch.

Whisk to combine.

Add the other half of cream to a small sauce pan on medium heat.

Add sugar

And sacrifice more champagne.  It will be worth it, I promise.  Let it come to a boil.

Meanwhile, one egg and two egg yolks to the cream and corn starch mixture.

Boiling...hard to tell but it is.

While whisking, pour 1/3 of the hot mixture into the eggy/cream/corn starch mixture.  Thank you to Mr. Schwartz for taking this action shot.  Be sure to whisk the heck out of it, you don't want sweet scrambled eggs.

After you have tempered the egg mixture, add it to the sauce pan back on medium heat.

Again, whisk the heck out of this until it is...

Thickened...then add butter.  Why not?  This makes it so glossy and pretty.

Add a little vanilla as well.  Whisk again, take off of the heat to cool.

Once the cupcakes have had a chance to cool--they don't need to be 100% cool at this point--take a frosting tip and use it to core the cupcakes.  If you are super cool and have a cupcake correr, you are too cool for me, mainly I'm jealous.  Just use whatever you can to make little holes.

Like so.

But I wanted them deeper so I took a tiny tongs and...

Took out a bit more.  Confession: I ate every core of these cupcakes while sipping champagne.  It was heavenly.  Then I referenced the recipe and found that I was supposed to KEEP the cores and replace them.  My bad.

Cored.

Take the pastry creame and place it in a zip top bag and cut the corner off.  Use that to fill the cupcakes.  I had a little left over.  

Filled.

Onto the frosting.  Sacrifice more champagne...

Add it to a small sauce pan to reduce to only 2 tablespoons.

Meanwhile, add butter and powdered sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer.

Beat until fluffy

Reduced.

Place in a small bowl to cool

By an open window...or freezer. Up to you and basically the same thing in Minnesoooota.

Add the reduced champagne to the frosting + an additional tablespoon of fresh bubbly champagne. See, I bolded this for you because after I added the champagne to the sauce pan for the last time to reduce, I poured the remaining champagne into my glass.  I sipped and whipped my butter and powdered sugar.  Quick reference back to the recipe and CRAP, I need another tablespoon.  Luckily I just dipped my tablespoon right in my glass and added it to the recipe.  Don't get too hasty with the sipping folks.    

It will look like this. Heaven.

Frost your cupcakes.  I watched a few cupcake frosting tutorials before I did this.  I knew for my blogiversary I had to do it right--I'm pretty happy with my results.  I'm not ashamed to say that I jumped up and down in my kitchen saying "I'M A CUPCAKE FROSTING WIZARD" while my husband and dog looked at me like I lost it.  Not ashamed at all.

Oh hello beautiful.

Oh the sweet taste of my first blogiversary.

Oh yes, see that, its champagne pastry creame...

I made enough to share...a few...

I totally made a wish.


Cake: 
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 champagne, prosecco or your choice of sparkling wine

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.

Fill cupcake papers with 1/4 cup level measures of batter.  Bake for 17-22 minutes.  Set aside.

Champagne Pastry Creme Filling:
1/2 cup heavy cream, divided
1/2 cup champagne or prosecco
2 tbsp cornstarch 
5 tbsp granulated sugar
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla

In a medium bowl, whisk cornstarch in 1/4 cup of heavy cream. Combine the remaining heavy cream, sugar and 1/2 cup champagne in a saucepan; bring to a boil then remove from heat.

Beat the whole egg and egg yolks into the cornstarch/heavy cream mixture.  Pour 1/3 of boiling champagne mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so the eggs do not cook.  Return the remaining champagne/heavy cream mixture to a boil.  Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens.  Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.  

Cut a divot into the top of each cupcake and fill with pastry cream.  Trim the cut-out cake pieces flat to make a "lid" and place on top of the filled divot.


Champagne Frosting:

1 cup plus 1 tbsp. champagne or prosecco
2 sticks of butter softened
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

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.

Frost the cream-filled cupcakes and decorate with pastel dragees.


Recipe DIRECTLY from here: Sprinkle Bakes