Margarita Cupcakes

How is the home organizing coming along?  Need a tiny break?

Today we are doing something a little different.  I am taking a break from the wave of new year organizing and making a little mess in the kitchen – just a little.  A few weeks ago I was asked to bring something sweet to a little get together with friends and I immediately knew that I wanted to bring cupcakes, but I wanted them to be special.  Literally within days of that invitation, I was asked by Wayfair if I wanted to be a part of a fun campaign they were doing called #Cocktail2Cupcake .  I said yes and decided to merge my most favorite drink, the margarita with a plain cupcake recipe that I already had.

I love a good margarita and my husband makes the best ones.  I rarely order them in restaurants because I know that they usually make them using sour mix and a bunch of artificial stuff.  My husband has me spoiled with the real deal – a simple recipe that uses real ingredients.

I took a basic cupcake recipe that I had and I added some lime tequila and grand mariner, which are ingredients in the margaritas that he makes me.

Here is the recipe that I used and it yielded 24 cupcakes.

 

INGREDIENTS

3 cups of cake flour

1 tablespoon of baking powder

2 1/4 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

1 cup of room temperature unsalted butter

4 eggs at room temperature

1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lime juice

2 tablespoons of tequila

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 cup of buttermilk

 

INSTRUCTIONS 

1- Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees F.  Prepare the muffin pans with the liners.

2- In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

3- Using an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the sugar and the room temp butter for a few minutes.  Then add the eggs one at a time.  Incorporate the vanilla, lime juice and the tequila.  Be warned that at this point the mixture will appear to be too loose.

4- With the mixer on low, start incorporating your dry ingredients into the wet, alternating with the buttermilk.  Do not over mix.  You just want it to be incorporated.  (I mention this because once you add the flour, you can really mess up the outcome of any cupcake by over mixing.)

5- Divide the batter between the lined muffin/cupcake pans and only fill until they are 3/4 full.  Bake the cupcakes about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Do not over bake, I start checking mine after 19 minutes.)

6- Allow to cool on a wire rack.

 

The frosting – 

2 boxes of confectioners sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter

2 1/2 teaspoons of lime juice

2 tablespoons of Grand Marnier

1 teaspoon of tequila

pinch of salt

1- Blend the sugar and butter until smooth.  Add the lime juice, Grand Marnier, tequila, and salt.

2- Pipe the frosting using a star tip onto the cooled cupcakes.

Enjoy!  I know that my friends loved them and not only were these delicious but they were beautiful.  I added a thin wedge of lime that I tossed in some sugar before placing on the cupcake.

Have an awesome weekend friends.  I’m ready for a real margarita!