Sangria Cupcakes

So I have totally fallen in love with the idea of this blog, Spain In a Cupcake. I seriously want to try everything she has posted so far.

I started last night by making her version of a sangria cupcake. I was really excited for these, they sounded very interesting.

Well, let's just say that there were aspects of this experiment that were successful and some that were a total disaster. But I'm still new to baking, and learning along the way.

First off, let's start with the good points:

I really liked the flavor of these treats. They were unlike any other cake I've ever had. It was quite dense and very moist with some dark notes from the red wine coming out. Since I used an actual sangria wine instead of just a red wine the citrus flavors really came out without me actually having to add anything.

The fruit that was added I felt was unnecessary, especially because I had used sangria that already had the citrus in it.

Now comes the failure part. My buttercream. I've made some pretty awesome buttercream frostings in the past (remember the Bailey's one? Yum!). I don't know what happened with this one. It literally started melting everywhere the minute I put it in the bag to start piping. Looking back I'm thinking I didn't cream the butter enough and it just separated. I remember looking at it when I put the die in and it didn't look quite right.

The buttercream tasted pretty good, it just didn't look good. I took a picture anyway, so I can remember this little lesson and move on.

I wish it had turned out better because I thought these would look so pretty, I even created some cute little toppers that looked like wine glasses made from white chocolate and red sprinkles.

So I will actually be trying this recipe again tonight. Leaving out the fruit and trying my buttercream again. Hopefully they look better. Even if they don't they still tasted good.