{Recipe Recap} Champagne Cupcakes

The alternate title for this post is “Brunch and Buns.”  I made the cupcakes for Jari, a friend who organized a brunch-and-a-movie outing for us girls.  We ate at Mia Francesca and then went to a Magic Mike matinee.  The former was slightly disappointing but I assure you, the latter was anything but!

We got together on Sunday, July 1st and Jari’s birthday was the following day.  I offered to make the treat of her choice for the group and she immediately came back with, “Champagne cupcakes.”  So off to the internet I went to find a recipe and a random search turned up a recipe by a blogger I already read regularly.

I was excited to finally use my flower cupcake liners.

I mean, do these things scream “girls going to see half-naked men on the big screen” or what?

When I went shopping for the champagne/sparkling wine, I picked a couple different bottles off the shelf before settling on the PERFECT one: a Prosecco by Cupcake Vineyards.

These cupcakes have three parts – the cake, a pastry crème filling, and the frosting – and all three parts have champagne in them.  I’m not sure that flavor itself stood out very strongly, but I felt like it was detectable if you knew it was there and it tempered the sweetness of the treat.

I’m really glad Jari knew exactly what she wanted and that it was something different for me to whip up.

Flowers full of sugar and alcohol, not a half-bad way to start the week, right?

As usual, the weekend flew by.  I was up at 7:00 Saturday morning so that I could run 12 miles per my training schedule and ended up doing 12.5.  I really need to map my routes before I get started…  I was really sore after last week’s 10.5-mile run, but I felt much better after this weekend’s run. 

We had some overnight guests (more on that later this week) and then the McHusband and I played hooky from our usual Sunday responsibilities like spin class and saw a matinee showing of Ted.  We both liked the movie enough, but we’re glad we didn’t pay nighttime prices for it.

{Champagne Cupcakes}