Fresh-Squeezed Mimosa Cupcakes

The bright flavor of fresh-squeezed orange juice gets a bubbly lift in these brunch beverage-inspired mimosa cupcakes. Top each soft and fluffy cupcake with a delectable swirl of champagne frosting  for the ultimate brunch dessert. See recipe note for a non-alcoholic version. Cheers!

We’re drinking mimosas and eating them, too—mimosa cupcakes, that is! Our boozy cupcake escapades began with margarita cupcakes and since then, we’ve been intrigued to turn more favorite drinks into cupcakes like these Baileys and coffee cupcakes and Guinness cupcakes. 

The combination of champagne and orange reminds us of weekend brunches with pitchers of mimosas. Bakers, let’s brunch.

Tell Me About These Fresh-Squeezed Mimosa Cupcakes

• Flavor: For these mimosa cupcakes we use our classic vanilla cupcakes as the base, but make a few noticeable changes. We add orange zest and orange juice to the cupcake batter as well as champagne. These cupcakes taste “sparkly,” with a little tart and sweet in each bite, paired with bright citrus flavor just like a mimosa. 
• Texture: Each bite is soft and fluffy with a generous layer of extra creamy frosting. Creaming the butter and sugar together produces a cakey cupcake and cake flour always keeps cakes and cupcakes light. These are one of the fluffiest cupcakes we’ve ever made and we can thank the champagne for that. It lightens and lifts up the cupcake batter, so each bite is springy, light, and oh-so-soft.
• Ease: In terms of prep, there really isn’t much to it! We use champagne in both the cupcake batter and the frosting, but for the frosting portion, you must reduce it on the stove first. (Otherwise the amount you need for enough flavor would ruin the frosting’s consistency.) Besides the time on the stove, the process is pretty straightforward for a cupcake recipe. 
• Time: Set aside extra time to reduce the champagne and let it cool for the frosting. The batter is quick to prepare, but make sure you wait for the cupcakes to fully cool before topping them with frosting.

What Champagne Should I Use?

Use your favorite champagne or sparkling wine for today’s mimosa cupcakes. If you like how it tastes out of the bottle, you’ll like how it tastes in the cupcakes and the frosting. While the champagne taste is faint, you’ll definitely notice something different about them. 

We’ve tried the recipe with dozens of different sparkling wines, including prosecco, and each has been fantastic.

Champagne Frosting

We’ve loved this champagne frosting  so much that we created a separate post for it just in case you want to pair it with other cupcake flavors like funfetti cupcakes or lemon cupcakes.

We begin with our 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, let’s add a small amount of *extreme* champagne flavor. We also do this with Guinness in Guinness chocolate cake, and with strawberries in my strawberry cake, too. Make sure the reduced champagne is cool or room temperature—NOT hot. 

• Time-saving tip: We like to reduce the champagne down while the cupcakes are baking, then stick the reduction in the refrigerator to continue cooling. If the champagne reduction is hot, it will melt the butter in your frosting, which creates an awful frosting experience—curdled buttercream.

Decorate the mimosa cupcakes however you’d like. We simply swiped frosting on each cupcake with an icing knife, then topped with an orange slice and a shower of gold sprinkles. Because it’s a sparkling fresh-squeezed mimosa!

More Cupcake Recipes From This Batter

• Confetti Cupcakes
• White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes
• Pistachio Cupcakes
• Chocolate Caramel Coconut Cupcakes
• Piñata Cupcakes

Print