Champagne Cupcakes

Happy Tuesday readers!  I hope everyone had a fantabulous 4th of July weekend!  The fambam and I went on our annual camping trip up in the Sierras.  We had a great time...the water was high this year, we got a great camping site, cruised around in a little boat, and had a great unstinky bathroom!  The two old couple that managed and took care of the area did a fantastic job!  Get this, they came out twice (yes, twice!) a day to clean up the bathrooms!!   Overall, made for a very enjoyable weekend!  And the whole time out there, all I could think about was: if only there was a portable oven...solar powered, battery powered, or something!  I really wanted to try out a booze cake: champagne cake!  I thought it will be fun for a special occasion, but really wanted to test it out first to see how the taste of the champagne plays with the cake.  I had to wait until today to whip it up!  Amidst unpacking all our camping gears and stowing them away, washing and drying all the clothes and blankets we took into the wilderness, and bathing our once white dog, I finally got a chance at my booze cake!

I had also bought some very pretty cupcake liners that were clearanced out from Sur La Table.  I wanted to wait for a special occasion to use them, but they were sooo pretty and tempting that I used them on these champagne cupcakes.  Don't worry, I made C run out to SLT over the weekend and purchase more for me =D

These cupcakes were actually very tasty.  I was a bit worried about how the champagne would taste, seeing as most champagnes are kinda sour and bitter...Although, I cheated a bit and used a sweet sparkling wine that I usually like to drink instead of a traditional champagne brut.  I figured the sweetness of the sparkling wine would complement a cupcake :)

 The frosting also contains champagne, so this cupcake would be fantastic for an adult party.  There is a subtle hint of champagne...you can't get blatantly drunk, but what's nice is you can drink the rest of the bottle....and no, I did not drink the rest of the champagne this morning...I waited until lunch time to down it ;) LOL..but yeah, the frosting, after some tweaking around, was perfect consistency for piping onto cupcakes! 

Enjoy! :)