Champagne Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

We rang in 2014 with a quiet evening watching the ball drop in NYC, drinking and eating champagne in cupcake form, and hanging with our girls.

Yup, you heard me right. Bonnie now has a little sister named Bella we adopted a few days ago.

Maybe we are insane because Bonnie is such a good dog, and we are about to add a lot more crazy to our lives, but we felt we had a lot of love to give to another dog, and it would be worth all of the extra time and effort. Bella is also a border collie mix, about a year old, rescued from a shelter in South LA and brought to a no-kill facility near us. We were making some year-end charitable donations when we stumbled across her picture and couldn't get her adorable spots out of our mind. We'd been talking about adding a second dog to our family for awhile, so we just sort of did it. Bella is really sweet and affectionate, to both us and Bonnie. She picked up potty training pretty quickly, but she is a little slower with crate training. She is already experiencing some separation anxiety issues, whining very loudly when she is not with us. But once that issue subsides, I think we'll have a great new family member. Bonnie is taking it pretty well. She likes having a live-in wrestling partner, but not so much sharing her toys. They are so cute together they look like they could practically be biological sisters!

But back to the cupcakes. There is almost an entire bottle of champagne used in this recipe between the frosting and the batter. You can definitely taste the champagne flavor once baked, so you might not want to use a super cheap bottle (unless that's what you are all about), but there's no need for a super fancy bottle by any means. The remaining champagne can be enjoyed while baking!

When searching for recipes, I chose the cake recipe because it used cake flour and egg whites, which along with the bubbly would seem to make a light and fluffy cake, exactly what you'd expect for champagne. These ended up lighter in texture than your standard cupcake with a few air pockets from the champagne, but not as light as say, an angel food cake.

The raspberry preserves add an extra pop of flair to the middle to keep the cupcakes from becoming boring and one-dimensional. I attempted to decorate a few of the cupcakes with these pretty sparkly edible flower petals D's mom bought for me. Unfortunately, I really do not have an eye for design and they looked a little goofy. But the sparkle was nice surrounding a fresh raspberry on top, and sugary petals added a nice little texture to the top.

Perfect celebratory cupcakes for a new year and a new puppy! Yay 2014!