Champagne Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream Icing

On May 1st my Hetero-Life-Mate (BFF for those of you that don't know Jay and Silent Bob) graduated from college. Since it was such a special occasion, and I needed to make something that was portable, I asked if I could make some fancy cupcakes. Now don't get too excited, fancy doesn't mean pretty, fancy just means fancier ingredients. So what did I make?
A combination I thought of myself. It seems like a really obvious one, but I googled and did not find many links.
I give you:
Champagne Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
(why do I always want to say Champagne wishes and Caviar dreams instead?)
I found the the Champagne cupcake recipe at All Recipes link here
I read the comments and made a few adjustments, I think they turned out pretty well. This recipe makes 26 cupcakes. Two of them may be a little smaller than the others.

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups champagne (I used pink but the cupcakes still came out a creamy color)
• 6 egg whites 

Directions  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line each cup of a muffin tin with paper baking cups. Preferably cute ones ;)
2. 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.
3. In a 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. Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. 

Mid-baking realize that you haven't taken any photos yet and search for your camera. Once you find the camera, check the battery only to discover that you haven't charged it for a while and it is getting pretty low. Consider your options: lovely step by step amateur photos of your latest baking adventure or proof that you were present at a major life event of one of your closest friends. Choose the latter, plug the battery in to the charger and get back to those cupcakes you promised her. 


For the frosting I chose a basic buttercream because it's simple and delicious. The best part about buttercream is that it tastes amazing yet only requires about three ingredients, and that's only if you want it to be flavored.
To make the frosting I used 2 sticks of room temperature butter, creamed it until fluffy and added in 2.5 cups of powdered sugar slowly. I added 3 tablespoons of strawberry preserves and mixed until combined. I put all of the frosting into a 1/2 gallon ziploc, cut off the end and frosted the cupcakes.

I chose this picture so that you could see how well the frosting held up in 80 degree weather.

And because she makes such pretty faces.

Congratulations Hetero Life Mate, I'm very proud.

Because my HLM hails from my hometown I was able to stop by and see one extra special guy. He's really been working on improving his life lately and I'm really happy for him. He's dropped about 20 pounds since I saw him in November and you can see that it has changed him. He has more energy than he has in years and greeted me so enthusiastically I barely recognized him. He's a little camera shy but he did give me permission to post his picture if it didn't show his face.

Looking good Jasper!

And we all know a post wouldn't be complete without some of our regularly scheduled puppy love.

This is B "watching" a movie with me on the couch.

At least one of us was comfortable.