Strawberry Champagne Cupcakes by Stephanie Blackmoore

Champagne is usually reserved for festive occasions like weddings, but it’s a versatile flavor that can bring some zing to an ordinary dessert. These strawberry champagne cupcakes would be equally at home at a wedding celebration or on a lazy summer day!

Makes one dozen.

CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS:

1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup sugar
½ cup coconut oil
½ cup applesauce
¾ cup champagne
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift or whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, coconut oil, applesauce, champagne, and vanilla extract.  Gently beat the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until smooth. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake for 19-20 minutes.

ICING INGREDIENTS:

¾ cup coconut oil
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
¼ cup champagne
1 cup strawberries, quartered

Beat coconut oil, confectioner’s sugar, and champagne together until smooth and fluffy, for about 5 minutes. Spread on cooled cupcakes. Garnish with strawberries.

 

“Had me in its spell from page one. Readers will love this.” –Leslie MeierAll appears peaceful in sleepy Port Quincy, Pennsylvania–but in this small town, old grudges die hard. . .

After dumping her cheating fiancé and cancelling the wedding, Mallory Shepard can’t bear another disaster. So when the former bride-to-be unexpectedly inherits Thistle Park, a ramshackle mansion in her ex’s hometown of Port Quincy, it’s a problem she can’t afford–literally. Abound with stray cats, peeling wallpaper, and nosy neighbors, Mallory is dying to sell it off–once she finally fixes up both the place and her messy life. . .

Turns out, Thistle Park has its charms. But the honeymoon phase is abruptly cut short when an unwanted visitor is found dead on the front lawn. Enlisting the help of her sister Rachel, Mallory vows to unveil the killer before she herself becomes married to the suspect list. . .

“I had great fun reading the adventures of nouveau sleuth Mallory Shepard as she wrangles corpses, kittens, and a cheating fiancé in this charming debut mystery.”              –Laura Levine, author of Death by Tiara