The season of entertaining is upon us. I’ve partnered up with Sauza® Tequila to bring you a new cupcake recipe and some inspiring ideas for a fabulous Holiday Girls’ Night!
The holiday season is well underway. This is the craziest, busiest and most wonderful time of the year! Whether you’re an entertaining newbie or a seasoned pro, the role of hostess can be a stressful assignment. But entertaining doesn’t have to be hard. You just need a plan to make it all happen! So grab your girlfriends and celebrate the season with a fabulous girls’ night in. We’re keeping it elegant and effortless with light angel food cupcakes and a glass of Sparkling Margarita. It’s a refreshing change to the same old, same old holiday party. Let’s start with the cupcakes and move on from there! Priorities, right? Planning the cake always comes first!
Angel food cake is one of my all time favorites. It’s light and sweet and totally unexpected around the holidays. So I thought cupcake sized portions would be a great addition to a girls’ night in. It’s a refreshing change to the heavy desserts we often enjoy during the month of December. And definitely pairs nicely with a bubbly glass of wild berry Sparkling Margarita.
The greatest thing about these cupcakes? They look impressive but they could not be easier to make. We’re taking a classic angel food cake recipe and adding a small touch of lemon zest to brighten the flavors. Then topping with a sweetened whipped cream and fresh raspberries, creating a little airy delight. The only thing hard about these cupcakes… is eating just one.
Snow Angel Cupcakes – light angel food cupcakes with lemon zest topped with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.
Author:Carrie Sellman
Yield:24+ cupcakes
Category:✽ ✽ ✽
Ingredients
For the Angel Food Cupcakes
2 cups granulated sugar, divided
1 ⅓ cups sifted cake flour
12 egg whites, at room temperature
¾ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar
zest of one organic lemon
When Ready To Serve
16 ounces heavy whipping cream, very cold
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
Fresh Raspberries
Confectioners’ Sugar
Instructions
Make the Cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a food processor, pulse sugar until it is superfine. Roughly two minutes on low.
Combine ½ cup sugar with cake flour and sift together four times. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer filled with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites, salt and cream of tarter until medium firm peaks.
Sprinkle remaining 1 ½cups sugar over egg whites with mixer running. Mix until thick and shiny.
Add lemon zest. Mix several additional minutes until very thick. Remove bowl from stand mixer. Scrape down whisk attachment, removing all egg whites and zest.
Sprinkle ¼ of flour mixture into bowl and gently fold into egg whites using a clean rubber spatula. Repeat until all flour has been added.
Spoon batter into a muffin tin lined with cupcake wrappers. Fill each wrapper almost to the very top. Smooth top.
Bake 17 – 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes and then remove from muffin tin to cool completely.
When Ready To Serve:
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk chilled heavy cream and 4 tablespoons sugar until you have soft peaks.
When ready to serve, spoon a dollop of whipped cream on top of each cupcake. Top with a fresh raspberry and a sprinkle of confectioners sugar, if desired.
Notes
To make whipped cream topping in advance, use mousse powder, gelatin, cream cheese or another stabilizer to prevent the cream from deflating.
Now that we have the cupcakes covered, let’s talk about the rest of our Holiday Girls’ Night In! I love the idea of offering a selection of mini desserts and cookies for guests to nibble while sipping a glass of Sparkling Margarita. Small bites like cookies and cake pops let the girls sample a little bit of everything without the heaviness of a big dessert. Here’s a few ideas to get you started.
When decorating, go for a simple color palette of red and white. This updated twist on the traditional holiday colors has such a fresh look.
Linzer cookies are a classic treat that work nicely with our color scheme. Two almond flavored cookies are sandwiched together with a layer of jam. Get the recipe to make them HERE.
Cake pops get festive with a hint of peppermint and a striped stick. Make your own or cheat and order some HERE.
Serve upSauza® Sparkling Margarita with festive garnishes like cranberries, raspberries or rosemary.
Of course, we’ll include our Snow Angel Cupcakes!
Pull out your extra cake stands and top withornaments for a quick and easy centerpiece. Done!
If you’re ready to get the party started, you can find more Girls’ Night inspiration on my Pinterest board HERE.
Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Sauza® via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Sauza®. Cupcake recipe and photography by Carrie Sellman for The Cake Blog. Thank you for supporting the sponsors who help keep this blog going!
Don't use a plastic bowl, which may have an oily residue that can minimize the volume of beaten egg whites. Add cream of tartar and vanilla to egg whites.Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form (tips curl).
Use room temperature eggs for the best meringue results and separate the eggs, one at a time with three containers. One for yolks, one for quarantine and the final for completely yolk free whites. This will ensure that no fat at all gets into your final mix, even the smallest fat will ruin the rise of the cake.
Fill your cupcake liners 3/4 full.Bake at 400 F for the first five minutes.Then lower the temperature to 350F for the remainder of the baking time. That first initial blast of heat will cause the tops of the cupcakes to puff up.
"Baking fluffy, moist cupcakes is all about creating air bubbles in your batter that expand in the oven," she says. "If you overmix your batter, you collapse those bubbles and end up with a brick-like cake." Always mix at a low speed to avoid this, stopping just as all ingredients blend.
Egg Whites: The star of the show! They provide all of the leavening for angel food cake. Using only whites (no yolks) gives this cake a super light texture. Be sure to use only fresh eggs; liquid egg whites in a carton have been pasteurized, which can prevent them from whipping into stiff peaks.
The perfect egg temperature for angel food cake is about 60 degrees. Eggs that are too cold won't whip as well, so take a dozen eggs out of the refrigerator about an hour before you bake.
The egg whites are actually the sole leavening ingredient providing all the cake's rise. Use freshly separated eggs because they aerate the best. Carton egg whites or egg whites that have been frozen won't expand as much during the whipping process, which will negatively affect the rise of your cake.
If your tube pan has prongs around the rim for lifting, invert the pan onto them. Let the cake cool completely upside down, at least 2 hours. Don't worry – it won't fall out of the pan! To unmold, run a plastic/silicone knife around the edge of the pan, being careful not to separate the crust.
An angel food cake is finished baking when the cake is golden brown and it springs back when touched. If the cake stays pressed when you touch it, it isn't finished baking and needs a few more minutes.
However, if you add too many eggs to your cake batter, then your end result could be spongy, rubbery, or dense. Like flour, eggs build structure in a cake, so they make a cake batter more bonded and dense.
Next time you bake cupcakes or muffins, simply sprinkle rice in the bottom of the pan, then place the cupcake liner on top and fill with batter. Instead of the grease collecting at the bottom of your baked good, the rice will absorb the excess moisture without burning.
Basically, you'll start with a high temperature and drop to a lower temperature. Try starting at 400°F for 5 minutes, then reduce to 350°F for another 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cupcakes are done according to the recipe directions. You'll also want to be sure to fill your cupcake tins 3/4 full with batter.
Flour is the main ingredient of the batter and provides the base for the cupcake. Butter or oil provides flavor, tenderizes the batter and helps provide volume.
The average cake mix calls for the most boring of liquids: water. Instead of using water, substitute whole milk or your favorite non-dairy milk (almond, oat, and coconut milk work especially well). The milk adds fat, which results in a better flavor and density in your cake.
Check the temperature once your oven is preheated—if it's much higher, check your oven's manual to calibrate it so that 350 degrees actually means 350 degrees. Patterson also suggests simply lowering the temperature by 10 degrees if you notice your cakes significantly doming all the time.
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