I-Swurr-I-Wasn't-Drunk Pink Champagne Cupcakes

Everything was going fine.

I stood by the mixer, thinking normal baking thoughts, specifically that I may have a new baking hamartia. I used to consider my hamartia to be over-filling cupcake wrappers. I think it may have been replaced by forgetfulness in regards to how little pink dye is required to turn things pink, because the batter in front of me was looking less pink champagne and more Barbie Dream House. (A minor observation, definitely not enough to challenge the fact that everything as going fine.)

I filled the reusable silicone wrappers in the muffin tins, set the tins on the counter and opened the oven.

Halved recipe for the win.

Then it happened.

!?!?!?!

I guess one of the muffin tins wasn’t sitting far enough on the counter, and when I opened the oven door it got knocked from its height and six unbaked cupcakes flopped facedown on my kitchen floor. Of course I freaked out: since picking up my compulsive cupcake habit a few months ago, I’ve freaked out about much lesser matters. These were champagne cupcakes, and I hadn’t even imbibed any of the champagne while I was making them, and they ended up on the floor! What the fuck, people?!

I think the reuseable wrappers helped the salvageablility of the cupcakes. They all went into the oven, as planned. I guess this is the part where I could have dipped into the open champagne bottle, but I don’t have a very high tolerance and I was going to make more cupcakes that day. And I was home alone. If I’m ever in a position to experiment with how my cupcakes come out when I’m under the influence, there should probably be some supervision…*

I cleaned the pink cupcake prints off the floor, expressed my poutrage in a tweet or two and did some dishes. I speculated the “ick” factor of the fallen cupcakes, seeing as they’d made contact with my dirty kitchen floor, and decided that I might eat the fallen ones, but I wouldn’t frost them. Part of the decision to not frost ALL of them had to do with my much-vocalized annoyance with burdensome leftover buttercream.

One of the victories of this batch of cupcakes, then, was that I yielded no extra frosting. I was crazy-careful and made the smallest batch of frosting I’ve ever made: containing only ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar, the most prudently portioned pat of butter, a slight splash of champagne, and an amount of pink dye that as so small, I’m not sure how it even got in there.

Small kitchen catastrophies aside, these cupcakes were delicious: very moist. The flavors are present without being overpowering. I’d recommend them! Here’s where you can find the recipe.

The cupcakes' shape may have also been influenced by the reuseable wrappers.

When’s the last time you baked with booze?
Or the last time your cupcakes fell on the kitchen floor?



* I may not have a drunk kitchen record, but this woman is another story: