Published 2/9/2008 . Last updated 1/23/2019 .
Mimosa cupcake update, 7/10/2010: This post is about mimosa cupcakes that I made in 2008. They were delicious, but very dense. Recently, I've been using a lighter orange cupcake for my mimosa cupcakes which has been a huge hit (I still use the frosting from this post and I don't use any syrup at all). The cupcake recipe that I use is the recipe for my cranberry orange cupcakes but without the nuts.
Mimosa cupcakes are the perfect cupcake for a Sunday brunch. Unfortunately, while Bride and Groom 2.0 initially talked about a brunch wedding, they switched their plans to a late lunch and I missed / ignored the memo.
However, as another option, according to Wikipedia, mimosas are "often served to early guests at weddings." This was news to me. Perhaps there could be pre- and post-wedding cupcakes?
I realized last night when presenting my mimosa cupcakes at a St. Louis Bloggers Meetup that not everyone knows what a mimosa is.
A mimosa is a drink composed of three parts champagne or other sparkling wine and two parts thoroughly chilled orange juice, traditionally served in a tall champagne flute.
What is a Mimosa Cupcake?
My mimosa cupcakes are orange cupcakes with champagne syrup drizzled inside, topped with a champagne frosting and a little orange rind.
First things first, the mimosa cupcake batter was one of the best batters ever. It was one of those batters that almost seems a shame to bake because you just want to eat it all!
After baking, the cake was still tasty. Phew! It hits you with a nice splash of orange flavor. One comment everyone had was that it was particularly dense. Some said it was almost like pound cake. I enjoy dense cakes. If you are of the light and fluffy (wimpy) cake camp, these may not be for you.
The frosting on the other hand, was extremely light and had a nice, subtle champagne flavor.
Bride 2.0 thought the light frosting complimented the dense cake nicely. Groom 2.0 was bothered by the difference in lightness. I was focused on flavor and was happy with the whole thing!
The St. Louis Bloggers happily ate all the cupcakes but didn't give much in the way of opinions. Perhaps they didn't realize that all my tasters are required to give full, detailed reviews. Perhaps I didn't tell them. Bloggers, consider yourself told. Feel free to comment on this post.
Mimosa cupcakes are the perfect cupcake for a Sunday brunch.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda and powder and set aside. In a medium sized bowl, cream the butter until smooth then add the sugar and cream together. Once the butter and sugar are creamed add in the orange juice concentrate. Mix in one egg at a time. Add in flour mixture 1/3 at a time. When flour is thoroughly mixed, mix in the yogurt. Batter will be slightly lumpy, but should be smooth kind of like pancake batter. Divide the batter evenly into lined cupcake tins and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool.
Bring the champagne and powdered sugar to a boil and let them reduce about half way. Don't expect it to get thick. It will still be very liquidy when you are done. Poke holes in the cupcakes and drizzle in the syrup. Let it absorb into the cupcake and add more. Keep adding to taste.
Mix butter and mascarpone until creamy.
While mixing over low speed, slowly add the confectioner's sugar one cup at a time, being careful not to over whip frosting.
Mix in the champagne flavor.
*See post for champagne frosting warning.
The problem with champagne frosting is that you have to add way too much champagne in order to get a strong champagne flavor. This ends up making your frosting runny.
I bought some champagne flavor from LorAnn Gourmet. When I opened the bottle and took a whiff, I was overwhelmed by the aroma of bubble gum. I was disgusted. My husband had to remind me over and over again that this stuff was extremely concentrated and just a few drops would smell / taste completely different then taking in the whole bottle at once. Good thing he was right. However, smell your champagne and think bubble gum, you'll be surprised at the similarities.
What's the Orange Stuff in the Middle of the Frosting?
The orange stuff is just a little orange zest I used for decoration to add a bit of zing.
I really enjoyed the denseness of the cake. The cream was really light and seemed like it could melt off at any second but didn't. The light flavor of the cream set off the dense cake and made a great match. It was also a great sweetness, not too much and with the denseness I could control myself and stop at one.
I'm rarely tempted by cupcakes – til now! Just lovely!
i wonder if sprinkling pop rocks on top of a champagne cupcake would work or be good…im thinking of how to add fizz…isnt there a fizz candy?
These were so cool. Wish i'd snagged one for Nanna J.
I've been really enjoying your blog. Keep up making cupcakes and blogging about it. Hope to see you soon.
I'm not a food reviewer by any means. The cupcakes tasted good and they looked gorgeous. My brain had a hard time accepting that something that heavy could be a cupcake.
I loved seeing you again — l'chaim!
What a great idea! I love the flavor concept, and they look gorgeous, too.
I liked them, too. I was a little thrown off by the amount of orange flavor at first, but the whole thing went together really well. Yummy.
Crafty – Thanks for the review. Glad you liked them. Great to meet you last night!
Mystery Person – I'm not a fan of pop rocks, but that's an awesome idea! I love the concept of a cupcake with some fizz. I'm going to have to think about that.
Tojosan – Good to see you again! Glad you enjoyed the cupcakes.
Susan – Shalom! Sorry we didn't get more time to talk last night. Hope to see you soon. Thanks for your review.
Bittersweet – Thanks so much!
Kara – Nice meeting you last night. I could see how the orange could be odd if you weren't expecting it.
These sound really delicious. I love mimosas. Did not know that there was such a thing as champagne flavoring. Sounds tempting. The combo of sturdy cake, frothy icing, and the zing of orange zest is delightful!
ohh…how luxurious! and thanks for the tip about champagne flavor…didn't know it existed.
Elle – Thanks! I'm still eating them. They keep growing on me.
Steph – Always happy to share something new!
Nikki – Now I'm wondering about having a mimosa to wash down a mimosa cupcake. I wonder if that would be a bit too much. We stuck with the milk.
These look and sound fabulous! I've already sent my daughter-in-law the link to your blog.
Yay~ I'm so glad you are in this month for Cupcake Hero! It only seems fitting right?!?
Well now, I personally like dense cupcakes if it fits the flavor. And you balanced it with light creamy frosting so I'd say you're golden. There are so many different types of cakes, why on earth should all cupcakes be the same? Don't you just love batter? mmmm, batter.
Karen – Thanks for passing it along!
TW- Hah! I actually thought about making bloody mary cupcakes. I made tomato ones a while back so I would have just needed to modify them a bit. I decided to go for a more crowd pleasing option though.
Yummy, and I do love orange flavor. The icing was perfect. My all-time favorite, however, remains the Shirley Temple. It also has one of my favorite blog entries.
If you got around to the Bloody Mary cupcakes, I'd be happy. Easier to envision them as muffins, but I'm not a muffin fan.
Oh YUM! I think I would have been very tempted to eat it all before it was baked. Then I would have been found in a sugar coma! Beautiful cupcakes!
The Shirley Temple ones sounded divine, but these would run neck and neck. Darn being so far away and not able to taste test!! We really need to invest in airmail boxes for you to send us some!
Citrus flavors are my favorite flavors in foods – anything lemon and orange and I'm yours forever.
Hmmm…when are you guys arriving? Maybe I can talk you into making a batch for us :) I think I've proven my cake making skills are non-existent.
These sound great! I'm planning to make them for an upcoming briadal shower. Thanks for continuous good ideas!
Nancy – Don't count on it anytime soon. Maybe someday though.
K – I have no doubt you could pull it off. No one has really found a good way to ship a frosted cupcake, unfortunately.
Kara – No problem. Hope you like them. Please let me know!
My room mates pick on me for my exorbitant number of kitchen gizmos and goodies, but I recently added flavorings to the list thanks to this post. I got the chocolate hazelnut (which smells DIVINE), orange, lemon, and, of course champagne. They came last night, so sometime in the coming week I will likely get to try these. Super excited.
I love the idea of a Mimosa cupcake. You should create a "Bellini" cupcake to go along with it! A true Bellini has sparkling wine and peaches… so yummy! I bet you could come up with something delicious. Just a "brunch" thought.
Tart – Awesome! I can't wait to hear how it all turns out.
Cupcakery – Oooh… a bellini cupcake sounds like a winner. I'm going to have to add that to my list. I may even have to write that list down at some point, it's getting quite long.
This is pure sugar genius! I can't wait to host a brunch and try these out.
Hey, I found this recipe while I was looking for a way to make champagne frosting. I almost used it, but I didn't have a place to get champagne flavoring. Instead a ended up making a champagne flavored meringue frosting. The trick is to use egg white powder, and then to reconstitute it with champagne instead of water. The result was a light, airy frosting that tasted strongly of champagne. Anyway, I thought I would share that as an alternative way to make a champagne frosting. If you're curious you can check it out on my blog.
I tried these out this weekend and while they were quite tasty and easy for an admitted non-baker to make. I am confused by the people who thought the orange flavor was really strong, maybe I did something wrong but I didn't find that in my cupcakes. In fact I got a few comments that they could be more orangey I did use an organic whole-grain cake flour which could have affected the oranginess of the cake and did affect the texture. I love this idea and definitely want to try them again with a different kind of cake flour. I LOVE reading your blog and can wait to try some of the other recipes.
OMG, I made these for a work potluck this morning and they were a huge hit. So good. Do you have a cupcake book with all of your recipes? I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Wow, this was a great recipe! I just made these (with orange buttercream frosting) and already almost all of them are gone!
possibly a ridiculous question, but you do thaw the orange juice first, right? so in theory, could it be any orange juice? or is there a particular reason you use frozen concentrate?
Erin – Even if you thaw concentrate, it isn't the same as regular orange juice. It is a thicker and a stronger flavor. Normally, you would add water to the concentrate to make juice.
Mardi – Hah! Let me know what you thought when it was done!
Well I made the frosting on the weekend and it kinda sorta vaguely like champagne but I still can't get the idea of the bubblegum out of my head… Will experiment more. I made blood orange macarons with that frosting inside = mimosa macarons!!
I'm making these this weekend and absolutely can't wait. Have tried many of your other recipes and all successes however, do these make a dozen or 24 cupcakes? Also, I don't have time to order the champaigne flavoring, but have plenty of champaigne from new years, is there anything else I can do to still get a stronger champaigne taste!!??
Josh – Champagne has such a mild taste. You can try cooking it down a little bit and using it, but it really is hard to get the flavor without the extract. If you can't get the extract, I'd say make the orange cupcakes that I link to in my update at the beginning of the post (they are amazing), top them with vanilla bean buttercream or a cream cheese frosting, and then serve them with champagne.
As for how many it makes – if you use the original recipe, I'm not quite sure. I was a slacker in '08 and didn't say how many it made. I'm pretty sure that's it's 24 though. If you use the update it makes 18-20.
I too do not have the extract. I was thinking of making your new orange cupcake, but using the champagne syrup and then a champagne buttercream with orange zest. I am hoping the syrup gives it the champagne boost I want, but I am nervous to use it because for some reason you cut it from yours. Do you feel that the syrup hurts the cupcake in anyway?
These are amazing, I need to make and eat them!
I made these cupcakes for a Mother's Day Brunch. I did one thing different. When I made the champagne syrup I added orange zest. Everyone loved the cupcakes. Thanks for an amazing recipe.