Look up the term “fancy” in the dictionary. I bet you’ll find a photo of this champagne frosting. 🙂 This party-perfect buttercream brings a level of luxury to any dessert it touches. It’s creamy and silky soft with a light champagne flavor. Champagne buttercream is perfect for any and all celebrations including:
Birthdays Engagements Bridal showers Weddings Anniversaries New Year’s Eve Job promotions
Or just a casual night in! Champagne is acceptable any day, right?
How to Make Champagne Frosting
This is a very simple and straightforward American style buttercream. The frosting begins with a vanilla buttercream base: butter + confectioners’ sugar. To that, we’ll add champagne and vanilla extract. But we need to reduce down the champagne on the stove before adding it. Why? Reducing the champagne packs an intense amount of flavor into a smaller amount of champagne. We can’t overload our frosting with liquid because that would thin it out. Rather, we will add a small amount of extreme champagne flavor. Do you see this next photo? Left = champagne. Right = reduced and highly concentrated champagne. Look at the color difference! The champagne reduction has a lot more flavor and won’t ruin the texture of the buttercream.
My #1 Tip
Make sure the reduced champagne is cool or room temperature—NOT hot. If the champagne reduction is hot, it will melt the butter in your frosting, which creates the worst frosting experience your bowl (and eyes) will ever see. Curdled buttercream? Yep.
What Type of Champagne Do I Use in Frosting?
Use any kind of champagne or sparkling wine in this frosting. If you like how it tastes out of the bottle, you’ll like how it tastes in this champagne buttercream frosting. Same goes for my champagne sangria—use your favorite. I’ve tried the recipe with dozens of different sparkling wines, including prosecco, and each has been fantastic.
What Tastes Best with Champagne Frosting?
In addition to mimosa cupcakes and wedding cupcakes, it adds a little something extra to:
Vanilla Cupcakes Angel Food Cupcakes White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes Lemon Cupcakes Confetti Cupcakes White Wedding Cupcakes Lemon Cake Vanilla Cake Strawberry Cake White Cake
