Fizzy Mimosa Cupcakes

A French vanilla champagne cupcake is hollowed and filled with a custard, also laced with champagne. A champagne-orange cream cheese frosting rounds out the mimosa flavoring for a cupcake experience you won’t soon forget!

Bonjour, mes amis! Comment ca va?

Moi, ca va tres bien! I’m currently on a business trip in the lovely, French-speaking city of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada – and I must say, I am absolutely smitten. People are incredibly friendly, they put gravy and cheese on their french fries, and the guys are all tall and scruffy. It’s like a town that was built for me. I may not leave.

…kidding, of course! I do miss my kitchen and baking equipment terribly. However, I’ve scheduled some dates while I’m here (the first is in less than an hour!), so if I fall in love, well… i’ll just change the blog name to Poutine et Patron.

Speaking of French things! Champagne! That’s French! AND it plays a starring role in these cupcakes, which I baked on a recent Friday when I woke up only to discover that I had been #blessed with a broken blood vessel in my eye. Attractive. Hey, nothing like cupcakes to make your feel better, eh? <– look how good I am at Canada things!!!

Now, I love my champagne something fierce. Preferably plain, although I will accept a splash of orange juice at brunch to maintain appearances. Hence, the inspiration behind these mimosa cupcakes!

Fizzy Mimosa Cupcakes

To make the cupcakes, you will need:
– 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
– 1 cup granulated sugar
– 2 eggs
– 1 t vanilla extract
– 1/2 cup sour cream
– 1/2 cup champagne (or $4 TJs prosecco…)
– 1 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
– 1/2 t baking soda
– 1/4 t baking powder
– pinch salt

First, preheat the oven to 350F. Then, whisk together your dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder) in a small bowl and set aside.

Cream together your softened butter and sugar in a large bowl until well blended. Mix in eggs one at a time, and finally stir in the vanilla. Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine your champagne and sour cream. Now, stir about 1/3 of the champagne mixture into the butter mixture, followed by about 1/3 of the flour mixture. Continue until all is gently combined to create a delicate batter.

Pour your cupcake batter into the cupcake tins, then bake for 17 minutes. While these are cooking, get started on the…

Champagne Custard

To make the custard, you will need:
– 1/2 cup champagne
– 1/2 cup heavy cream
– 2 T cornstarch
– 3/8 cup granulated sugar
– 1 egg + 2 egg yolks
– 2 T unsalted butter
– 1 t vanilla extract

First, you will whisk the cornstarch into 1/4 cup heavy cream in a medium bowl. Then, combine the remaining 1/4 cup heavy cream, champagne, and sugar in a saucepan. Bring this to a boil over medium heat, and then set aside to cool slightly.

Ok, guys. Here’s where things start to get a bit dicey, especially if you’ve been partaking in the champagne festivities yourself (a bottle for the cupcakes, a bottle for me, right?!). Stay strong, you can do this.

Beat the egg and yolks into the cornstarch/heavy cream mixture. With your mixer running, slowly add 1/3 of the hot champagne mixture. It is important to keep beating throughout this process so that the eggs do not cook. Return the remaining champagne mixture to the stove over medium heat.

Pour in the hot egg mixture slowly, using a hand whisk to stir constantly (once again – you don’t want scrambled eggs!). You will whisk this until the mixture thickens. For a while you’ll be like “omg this is never going to come together I ruined everything” but then ALL AT ONCE it will be thick and custardy! This is what you want.

Remove your custard from the stove, beat in the butter and vanilla, and voila! Set this aside to cool just a bit. In the meantime, your cupcakes should have had a chance to cool. Using the technique seen in this blog post, cut a divot in the top of each cupcake.

Spoon your custard into a piping bag (or a ziploc bag, if you’re like me and spent all of your money on $4 prosecco), and pipe it into the divots, like so:

We’re almost there!! Now, no cupcake is complete without frosting (duh), and everything is better with champagne (super duh), so we’re whipping up an orange juice-champagne-cream cheese frosting. That was a lot of good words all at once.

To make the frosting, you will need:
– 8 oz (1 brick) cream cheese, softened
– 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
– 1 T orange juice (no pulp)
– 2 T champagne
– 5-6 cups powdered sugar

In a large bowl, beat together the butter, cream cheese, orange juice, and champagne until well-blended. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until you reach your desired sweetness, feeling free to adjust the orange juice and champagne amounts to your taste. Holy guac, guys, this stuff is GOOD.

I found that this frosting was a little bit runnier than most I make because of the additional liquid, so the icing job was ‘rustic,’ if you will. Don’t matta! Still tastes phenom!

Serve alongside a mimosa, for maximum effect 😉

XOXO,
Jesse