Champagne Cake

I adapted this recipe from a rum cake recipe on Gimme Some Oven. I still had champagne leftover from those cupcakes and god forbid I just throw it away.
I honestly have not tasted it myself yet, but it has gotten good reviews from my officemates so far. It makes a relatively pretty cake, as the outside is sugar-dusted to begin with, but kinda boring-looking on it's own. (The pics on the original recipe look a lot shinier than mine, so maybe I should have done more with the glaze, or at least upped the butter content?) To improve the aesthetics, I drizzled a vanilla frosting very lightly over the top, and dumped a berry medley into its center before serving. Unfortunately, it was gone before I got a picture of that!

Ingredients:

Cake Ingredients
1 (18.25 oz.) package yellow cake mix

1 (3.4 oz.) package vanilla instant pudding mix

4 eggs

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup champagne (sweeter the better!)

1/2 cup vegetable oil
extra sugar for pan

Glaze Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup water

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup champagne

Method:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (I did 315F). Liberally grease (either way cooking spray or butter) a bundt pan, and then pour sugar into it and swirl around until the entire inside of the pan is coated in sugar. (Discard any remaining sugar.)

In a large bowl, combine cake mix and pudding mix. Mix in the eggs, 1/2 cup water, oil and 1/2 cup champagne. Blend well. Pour batter into pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes [Mine only took 50 min, tops!!], or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto serving plate. Spoon glaze over top and sides. Allow cake to absorb glaze and repeat until all glaze is used.

Glaze Instructions:

In a saucepan, combine butter, 1/4 cup water and 1 cup sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat and continue to boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup champagne.

Tip: At the suggestion of other readers of the original recipe, I removed the cake from the pan, poked holes all in the cake then poured a little glaze in the pan and then put the cake back in the pan and pour the glaze all over the cake in the pan. Let it sit awhile then shake the cake loose carefully and plate it -- better the next day after giving more time to soak up the glaze flavors!

Champagne Cupcakes with Sweet Champagne Buttercream Frosting

Given my bordering-on-obsessive love for cake, champagne, and buttercream frosting, it shouldn't be surprising that I have been drooling for weeks over this recipe. A friend's birthday dinner this weekend finally gave me the excuse to go for it. This is the first that I've tried from Gimme Some Oven, but given how these turned out, and after looking around on this great website, I know it definitely won't be the last.
These are truly delicious cupcakes even on their own -- light and fluffy but maintaining a solid and not-at-all-crumbly consistency. The buttercream frosting sets it over the edge though -- absolute perfection!

Ingredients:
Champagne Cupcake Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour [I used just short of 3 cups for altitude considerations]
3 tsp. baking powder [I used ~2 3/8 tsp for altitude]
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup champagne (the sweeter the better)
6 egg whites

Sweet Champagne Buttercream Frosting Ingredients:
3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons champagne, at room temperature

Directions:
To Make The Cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (325 for altitude). Prepare a cupcake pan with liners. (This recipe yielded about 24 for me.)
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together, and then blend into creamed mixture alternately with champagne.
In another large clean bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into batter to lighten it, then fold in remaining egg whites. Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full.
Bake at 350 degrees F (325 at altitude) for 20 minutes (maybe a bit longer if doing 325), or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

To Make The Frosting:
With an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter. Mix on low until well blended, and then on medium for another two minutes. Add vanilla and champagne, beating on medium for another minute.

Frost each cupcake liberally, and top with white decorating sugar crystals.

(**The original post on Gimme Some Oven said that she had to nearly double this recipe to have enough to frost all of the cupcakes as pictured above. I LOVE frosting and actually found this to be enough...although maybe 1 1/2 times the recipe would be the perfect amount!**)