Lemon Champagne Celebration Cupcakes!

Yes, another Pinterest find!  I saw these and thought they looked really cute and based on ingredients would probably taste pretty good too.  As an added bonus I got to open a bottle of Kenwood Yulupa Sparkling Cuvee Brut, my favorite sparkling wine!

Here's a LINK to the recipe.

It's easy enough to put together, if you have several hours.  The cake needs to cool in the pan for an hour then in the freezer for another hour before you can start assembly.  The recipe calls for jarred lemon curd but I made my own. It's just too easy to make!

The cakes are baked in rimmed baking sheets, cooled then frozen for an hour.  The freezing helps with the crumbs!

Once cold, circles of cake are cut out, topped with lemon curd, topped with another circle of cake then drizzled with a glaze of butter, powdered sugar and lemon juices.  Seems simple enough right?

Cakes baked up just fine.

Cutting the circles worked just fine.

Adding the curd worked just fine.

Adding the second circle of cake worked... well.. fine, if the circles were completely level.  I learned after a couple I really needed to level the circles.

 The drizzle on top worked just fine too, assuming the cake layers were level!

I embellished with a little lemon zest and voila, Lemon Champagne Celebration Cupcakes.  Sort of.  I didn't have a cutter that was exactly 2 1/4 inches in diameter.  Mine was just between 2 1/4 and 2 1/2 inches which made the "cupcakes" not quite fit in a cupcake holder.

 They were also very unstable!  Maybe a toothpick in the middle would have helped?

So after a half a dozen or so I decided to make mini lemon champagne cupcakes!  They weren't that much more stable.  I will say after they were refrigerated they firmed up a little.

So after that I decided to just torte the other cake I had made, fill it with lemon curd and drizzle it with the glaze!  That worked!

 
I think this would make a delicious layer cake.  Forget the work of making all the cupcakes, make a regular old layer cake, put the curd between the layers, drizzle the glaze over the top and call it done!  Lots less work and lots less waste!

I will say they were delicious!  Especially with a glass of my Kenwood Yulupa Cuvee Brut!

I sent them to work with my hubby.  They (the "cupcakes I had made as well as the cake) didn't last until lunch!