The ever-so-classic combination of strawberries and champagne – signed, sealed, and delivered – in cupcake form.
This calls for a celebration.
You bring over the bottle of champagne – make that two three, we’ll need one for baking and one two for drinking – and I’ll whip us up a batch of these bad boys.
The Academy Awards are on this Sunday – does that work for you? Perfect.
You guys know I live for the Academy Awards, right? (Okay, fine…so I don’t live for the actual awards show. I much prefer the red carpet. And what I mean by that is watching Fashion Police the next day. Is it just me, or is Joan Rivers getting lewder – read: funnier – as she, um, ages?)
Nevermind the fact that I normally haven’t seen 90% of the nominated films. This year, I’m really shutting it down – I haven’t seen even one of the movies up for best picture. Although – I do plan on changing that this weekend. Friday night, Daniel and I have a date with either The Artist at this funky little old-school theater, or The Help via On Demand. Which one will it be? Well, let’s see: One requires me to leave my house, which probably means I’d have to put on some sort of clothing that doesn’t resemble pajamas. And then I’d have to brush my hair…make-up? No way. Not happening. I’ll take my comfy couch, spa robe, and vino, please.
I guess that settles that.
This is the first year that I won’t be having people over for a festive evening of champagne and popcorn (among other things), but that doesn’t mean I’m leaving you high and dry. I had a vision in my crazy-brain of something glamorous just for you – and what’s more glam than strawberries and champagne?
I’m not gonna act like this recipe doesn’t take some work – but here’s the thing: For a special occasion like New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, um…the Academy Awards – hi, a bridal shower (I brought them wedding dress-shopping for one of my BFFs…MAJOR success), etc. – these cupcakes cannot be beat.
It turns out, as it always does, that I’m not the first person who thought of combining bubbly and cupcakes. Yes, you’ll find many lovely versions in existence if you look – like champagne cupcakes filled with champagne pastry cream, or topped with ganache and chocolate-covered strawberries, or how about strawberry cupcakes topped with champagne frosting? Yes, please.
But, for some reason, none of that was fitting the bill. I was envisioning more champagne flavor, and fresh strawberries – something that truly showcased why these two things are forever lumped together. It was Richard Gere who first told us so, wasn’t it?
I’m pleased to say that this creation was a complete success. There’s a lot of champagne going on in here, between the cake, the filling, and the frosting – it’s truly a BURST of champagne flavor. The fresh strawberry purée used in the filling complements the light and airy champagne cake perfectly. The super-rich buttercream is a nice contrast to all of that, and the candied strawberries on top? Well, this way you have a better idea of what you’re getting into – otherwise you might have expected plain ol’ vanilla.
{Thank you, Ina – I learned that one from you}
I gave myself a pat on the back for coming up with the idea for the filling, because you’re using the leftover simple syrup from the candied strawberries to make it. That’s something I’ve been aiming to do more and more in recipe development: Make it make sense.
The last thing I’ll point out about creating this recipe is that I ever-so-carefully constructed it in such a way that you would have exactly one glass of champagne left when it’s all said and done.
You’rewelcomeverymuch.
P.S. Extra strawberry filling? See reader Kelly’s FABULOUS idea below in the comments! (Add it to champagne glasses before pouring the bubbly for a pretty pink situation.)
{Strawberries + Champagne} Cupcakes
Light and airy champagne cupcakes are filled with a fresh champagne-kissed strawberry purée and topped with rich champagne buttercream frosting and candied strawberries. Serve them for a special occasion like New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, the Academy Awards, or a bridal shower. Don’t have one of those coming up? Not to worry: These cupcakes are a celebration in themselves.
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 pint strawberries, hulled
- 1 1/2 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 egg whites
- 1 cup Champagne
- Leftover simple syrup from candied strawberries
- About 1/2 cup champagne
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
- 1 pint strawberries, hulled
- 2 sticks butter, room temperature
- 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- Pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup champagne
Make the candied strawberries: In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, bring sugar and 1/2 cup water to boil, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat; let cool completely. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Slice strawberries lengthwise as thinly as possible. Dip slices in cooled syrup; place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Reserve syrup. Bake until dry but still bright red, about 3 hours. Immediately transfer chips to a wire rack to cool completely.
Bake the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place cupcake liners in a muffin tin. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and beat in egg whites one at a time. Beat in flour mixture and champagne in three alternating additions, starting and ending with dry mixture. Pour batter into tins and bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the cupcakes comes out clean.
Make the strawberry filling: Take the remaining simple syrup and pour it into a measuring cup. Add enough champagne to get to 1 cup (you’ll need about 1/2 cup). Pour mixture back into the pan and cook over medium-high heat until the mixture is reduced by about half. Whisk in cornstarch and allow the mixture to thicken. Pour into food processor bowl and allow to cool. Add strawberries and pulse until combined.
Make the champagne buttercream frosting: Beat butter in bowl of stand mixer until light and fluffy. Add confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, beating after each addition. Add vanilla, salt, and champagne; beat until frosting is creamy. (Note: If you started with a bottle of champagne, you’ll have about one glass leftover. The finish line is near, and a victory drink is in order!)
Assemble the cupcakes: Using a small paring knife, cut a small cone from the top of each cupcake. Fill with a heaping teaspoon of filling. Using a pastry bag fitted with a star tip, pipe the buttercream onto each cupcake, swirling decoratively. Finish them off with a couple of candied strawberry chips, and serve.
Makes 18 cupcakes.
These cupcakes look fantastic! Will have to make these sometime soon. Have a great weekend!
Nikki recently posted..Déjeuner du matin
LOVE LOVE LOVE. Anything champagne of course. I want one right now!
Keely Marie recently posted..Twisted Chick Parm ::: Roasted Red Pepper Walnut Pesto
These are stunningly beautiful! Great job.
Wow, these should be my next under-taking!
Rachel recently posted..Strawberry Jam-filled Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Wow… Beautiful little things! Someday soon, I will make these, but they won’t look like as pretty as these.
Margarita recently posted..Indian Chili
This might sound funny but what can I replace the cupcakes with ?
Hi! Do you mean with a different flavor of cake? You could use vanilla or white cake.
so sorry but I meant the champagne ? is there something I can replace te champagne with ?
You could try using sparkling white grape or apple juice, or ginger ale. Also, if it’s the cost you’re worried about, you can use a Prosecco or inexpensive sparkling wine. Good luck, and let me know how it comes out if you give any of these substitutions a try!
Hey, the cupcakes turned out amazing !! I used fizzy peach juice, the ones in a fake champagne bottle and they were wonderful but I loved it thanks for the recipe
I love it! It’s like a peach-strawberry cupcake. Now I’m dreaming about incorporating more peach into the frosting for that one! Nice work, and so glad you enjoyed them.
Sarah, these look absolutely freakin’ AMAZING! This is my first time on your blog, and I know I’ll be back for another recipe after I try this one. Just out of curiosity, what kind of champagne do you use in yours?
Thank so much, Nycole! I believe I used Friexenet, which is my cheapy champagne of choice (it’s really a cava, which is a Spanish sparkling wine). You could also use a prosecco or another inexpensive bubbly like Korbel – I wouldn’t spend a lot. Let me know how they turn out! xxSAS
Hi, I made these for our anniversary, eggless, b/c of food allergies, replaced eggs with 1 flax egg and 1/4 cup sour cream. Used a sparkling pink moscato and they turned out great! Thanks
I’m yours.
These are beyond amazing. I mean…candied strawberries? That’s just insane!
I hope you saw the help! It was one of my favorite movies (of the…two…I saw this year!)
Joanne recently posted..Recipe: Chai-Spiced Cupcakes with Honey Frosting for the Joy the Baker Spotlight!
Your champagne cupcakes look absolutely gorgeous! We made a champagne cake before with Italian sweet Prosecco.
CHeers
J & C
These look so delicious – planning to whip them up for a party soon!
PostCollegiate recently posted..And In the End, The Love You Take, Is Equal To The Love You Make
These are so pretty!! Perfect for any ocassion really
Living The Sweet Life recently posted..Spicy Beef Udooly-Noodley Soup
Made these for Easter. A lot of effort, but they are sooooo good! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Quick edit -
Add cornstarch to the list of ingredients.
Thanks, Joe!
Sarah, I was wondering how well the frosting holds up for you. I make a cotton candy buttercream with cotton candy vodka, and the frosting tends to sieze. Have you had any problem with this using the champagne in the buttercream?
Just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful and beautiful recipe! I made these for our Earth Day party using local Texas strawberries and a Texas Moscato and they were a huge hit!
i just made this and everybody LOVED them!!!!! thanx for such great recipe
Yay, Elvia! You’re welcome and thanks for stopping by! xxSAS
Thank you for the recipe! I just made them for mother’s day, and they were a huge hit. I left off the candied strawberries sure to time constraints, but they were excellent!
You are so welcome, Amber! You didn’t miss much with the candied strawberries – they’re mostly for show, anyway. All the good stuff is in the cupcake itself.
So glad you liked them!
I use Wilton Sugar Pearls in white (pink would work nicely too!) It looks like champagne bubbles!
OMG this champagne buttercream is SO good! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I just wanted to say thank you for the recipe. I am making them for a wedding. I did 3 test batches this weekend (1 with regular champagne, 1 with my favorite almond champagne and 1 with sparkiling cider so it is kid friendly) They all 3 turned out great. I think I am going to stick to regular champagne since the almond gave it a deeper, richer flavor that may not be liked by all (and I’ll do a small batch of sparkling cider ones–they were yummy–more sweet than the others, but still good.)
But one question–did you have a trick for incorporating the cornstartch into the champagne simple syrup mix after boiling? My cornstarch clumped up everytime and there was no getting around it. I had to strain the mixture before adding to the strawberries. I would appreciate any tips you have for me since the BIG day is this saturday and I’ll be making 100+++
Thanks again for the yummy and beautiful recipe!
Kelli, you are more than welcome! I feel honored that you’ve chosen to make my recipe for a wedding, so thank you.
I do have a tip that I will go back and add to the recipe. I always dissolve cornstarch into a tablespoon or two of water. Just combine it into a small bowl – it will dissolve right away, and it won’t clump into whatever you’re adding it to. Best of luck and I’d love for you to share a photo onto my Facebook page, if you get the chance!
This recipe looks great! I think the girls at the Memorial Day party tomorrow will love them!
Quick question; do I need to use a decent bottle of champagne, or will a good trusty $5 bottle be ok?
And what type did you use? Something more sweet or brut?
Thank You!!!
I would stick with Freixenet or Korbel (Freixenet is my fave – in the black bottle). Both will run you about $10. I wouldn’t go cheaper than that because you can really taste it in the cupcakes. Both are brut, something sweeter might make them overly sugar – though you could decrease the sugar a bit in that case. Good luck, and enjoy your weekend! xxSAS
Ms. Kelli, the internet was created just for the purpose of finding wonderful people, bakers such as yourself and THIS recipe. We are throwing a surprise party for our First Lady at church and I am one of the sisters in charge with doing cupcakes. I like to make things special and unique for anyone I bake for and your recipe definitely fits the bill. I am SO stoked. I think I will do have with the strawberry champagne filling, the other: champagne custard filling. I will let you know how they turn out.
I have a couple of weeks to perfect this recipe for my wife’s birthday. I think she will love this, cause she is obsessed with cupcakes. Unfortunately I can’t bake, but practice makes perfect huh! I’m sure the recipe is perfect, so once I follow it, I should come out with a #win
How gorgeous are these cupcakes! I love the candied strawberries and that you put the syrup to such good use!
Hester @ Alchemy in the Kitchen recently posted..White Bean and Lemon Soup – has the X-Factor !
These look fabulous and have totally inspired me to try my hand at cupcakes again!
Anne@DishingGourmet recently posted..Basil Infused Strawberry Sauce
Wow, the ingredients make it sound delicious…looks like we have something for dessert.
Martha recently posted..How To Diet for Six Abs
I am super excited about making these for the first time. Question – I would like to make the cupcakes ahead of time and freeze them; although I’m hesitant to do so with such a delicate cake. Does anyone have experience with freezing these cupcakes, thawing, etc.? Thank you!
Kelly, I don’t think you should have an issue freezing them. I haven’t tried, but I’ve read that chiffon cake freezes just fine. Good luck!
Thank you for responding! I ended up having time to make them day-of (they were for a bachelorette party) and just wanted to report back that they were wonderful! Thank you for the easy-to-follow instructions.
For some reason I had a TON of the strawberry-champagne filling left over and we spooned that into the bottom of champagne glasses before pouring champagne into the glass – everyone loved the pink color and sweetness that it added. Thanks again!
Kelly – that is THE most amazing idea ever. Going to add it to the post! (I had a good amount of filling leftover, too.) You rock! xxSAS
Awesome! So glad you liked the idea
These were utterly amazing. Thank you so very much for sharing them!!!
So I’m Making the cupcakes now. I’m trying to make the filling once I added the cornstarch the filling turned to a gel consistency not pourable at all…what did I do wrong?
Micole, the cornstarch should thicken the filling. You want it thicker rather than pourable because you’re going to spoon it into the center of each cupcake. If it were too thin, it would probably run right through the cake. Also, when you purée it with the fresh strawberries, that will add moisture. Hope that helped you, let me know if I misunderstood your question!
These look amazing!!! I want to make these for an upcoming party. Can I make the strawberry chips a few days in advance? Will they get soggy?
I wish I knew! I would think they’d be okay, but I can’t make any promises because I made them the day of. I would store the candied strawberries in a covered container at room temperature and assemble before serving. Good luck!
I made these and they turned out great. Everything held up well for the 4 days they stayed around…… except the strawberry chips. I would definitely only make those if you plan to serve the same day. I think you could also use a piece of fresh strawberry or even the freeze dried strawberries from Trader Joe’s to decorate instead.
Found your great site! I reside in South Africa, and cup cakes are a great hit here too. Am busy making your recipe for this weekend’s winter gathering of friends. We all work in the wine industry, so thought Champagne Cup Cakes are perfect for our lunch! I would like to know what type of butter do you use for the icing?
Hi, Melanie. How fun! I use regular unsalted butter for the buttercream. Let me know how they come out for you!
Made the icing and YUM! Delish!
Tried doing the candied strawberries, but the colour went a bit toward the dull side, so doing another batch now at a lower oven heat, crossing finger!
i rarely comment on these things but i HAD to this time because i made these for a friends birthday and they turned out PERFECT. i never have recipes a) turn out or b) taste like i hope they will. this recipe is the perfect balance of sweetness, champagne, moist cupcake, fluffy frosting. it doesn’t get better. worth every second and so fun to assemble…thank you!!
I made these to practice for my best friend’s bachelorette party. I had a peach champagne (from Trader Joes) on hand and it worked well! I think I needed to add more powdered sugar to the frosting because it was not stiff like yours. It’s definitely a special recipe! Your cupcakes look beautiful!
Where did the ingredients/ recipe go?? I cant view it anymore!
Hi Juliette, what browser are you on? I’ve been having issues with certain browsers, so let me know and I will get it fixed for you!
aarggg!! I cant see hte ingredients either – from chrome, explorer or my iphone!! help!! i need to make the cupcakes tommorow for a bachelorret party!!
candy you please email me the ingredients via email??
thanks so much in advance!
annabelkind@gmail.com
Im using internet explorer and I just downloaded firefox but still no luck.
I would also like the ingredients list please
I made your cupcakes once before and they were a huge hit! I came back to get the recipe for a friend’s birthday, which is happening tomorrow, and I can’t see all of the ingredients either. Could you please e-mail it to me? I would really appreciate it! Thanks!
The only list of ingredients I can see are for the candied strawberries. I can’t see the ingredient lists for the cupcakes or strawberries. Any idea why? Am I missing something?
Hi Becky, this has been fixed. Sorry about that! Recipe is viewing properly now.
No ingredients listed. Please email.
Abby
Hi Abigail, the recipe is up and running again. Sorry about that! Hope you enjoy.
Is there anyway you could email me the recipe as well? I wanted to make these for tomorrow, thanks so much.
Hi Juliette, so sorry I didn’t get this in time! The recipe is now fixed. Hope you can find another opportunity to make them!
I can’t see the ingredients either….
These look so amazing!!!
Hiii! I was super excited to try this recipe and was very upset when they came out horribly! When you say cake flour are you talking about actual cale flour or the box of cake mix you can buy and add oil water and eggs to? My cupcakes came out really small, and my strawberry filling was way too watery!
cake flour is its own type of flour (you can actually make it yourself by replacing two tablespoons of each cup of all-purpose flour with two tablespoons of cornstarch and sifting it about 5 or so times), so boxed cake mix would be a disaster since it is not a type flour and comes with many other ingredients pre-mixed into it
I tried this recipe today but I must have done something wrong. I used cupcake liners (bad idea) and the cake stuck to them. I also filled them about 2/3 of the way as I do with other cupcake recipes and they only rose a little. I baked them for 15 minutes and the toothpicks came out clean. When I cut the middle out to fill them, the cake looked gooey although the toothpick came out clean. What could I have done wrong? I will attempt again in a few months.
When that happens, it usually means you skipped or mixed up an ingrediant. One time I used baking soda instead of baking powder. The end result was disasterous.
These cupcakes are amazing!! Since I made these for a girls night a few months back I have had many requests for these little cups of heaven since then. Thank you for sharing this recipe! By far my favorite. (even over chocolate)
I know some people said the cake game out gooey. You may need to fool around with the flour measurements. Cake flour and regular all purpose flour are not the same. I use regular AP flour and I just cut down the flour by 1/8 of a cup. The cake portion came out great! And actually puffed up a little better than the previous times.
These cupcakes look amazing! Thanks for posting! Question- my filling came out runny and am thinking it would be risky to attempt filling the cupcakes. I followed as you instructed and once out of the food processor, it’s a medium consistency. Not soupy but also not thick like frosting.
Can you tell me how I can thicken this without having to start over for the filling?
Thank you!’
I should mention, I didn’t have a food processor but instead used a Vitamix and mans made sure I pulsed it. I only needed to pulse it for about 10 sec before it was blended. Suggestions??