Pink Champagne Cake {Scratch Recipe}
Today we are excited to share a uniquely light and flavorful recipe with you for Pink Champagne Cake.
This elegant dessert, with its moist champagne infused layers & delicious buttercream is perfect for weddings, engagement parties, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve, or any occasion that calls for something special.
Table of Contents
Why Pink Champagne Cake? A Quick History!
Southern bakers have been flavoring their cakes with sweet beverages for decades (Lemonade Cake, 7 up cake, etc.) but Pink Champagne cake takes that practice to a whole new level of delicious sophistication.
It is believed that Pink Champagne Cake first originated on the west coast in the '50s and '60s, and was a hugely popular choice for bridal showers, weddings, and bachelorette parties.
There's just something a bit glamorous about a dessert flavored with Pink Champagne, don't you think? The Los Angeles Times printed a Pink Champagne Cake decades ago and to this day it remains one of its most requested.
If you like Pink Champagne, you are going to fall in love with this recipe. While the pink champagne isn't overpowering, the flavor is unmistakable.
We love to fill and frost the layers with our Pink Champagne Buttercream Frosting, but traditionally pink champagne cakes have often been paired with bavarian cream or coconut fillings.
How to Make Pink Champagne Cake
You can find our full Pink Champagne Cake Recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps!
- First, preheat the oven to 350℉ and grease & flour three 8 inch round pans. We also like to line the pans with circles of parchment paper.
- In a medium size bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside
- In another bowl combine the egg whites, champagne, vanilla extract, and vegetable oil. Whisk until blended and set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and sugar 3 to 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
- While mixing on low speed, and the flour mixture and egg whites mixture alternately. Start and end with the dry ingredients. We do three additions of dry ingredients and two additions of wet. Mix just until incorporated.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted the center comes out clean. Cool in baking pans 10 min. then turn out.
Pink Champagne Buttercream
We frosted our champagne cake layers with a delicious Pink Champagne Buttercream! We made extra since we did a lot of piping with our design. This recipe is so easy, pipes great, and has a light champagne flavor.
It is a simple combination of softened butter, confectioners sugar, pink champagne, vanilla, a pinch of salt, and pink coloring if you'd like!
Recipe FAQs
Champagne Cakes and More
We have several more great champagne cakes to share with you! Aside from today's Pink Champagne Cake from scratch, we also have a delicious, easy Pink Champagne Cake from a mix!
Other popular recipes are our Champagne and Strawberries Cake , Strawberry Champagne Cake and Champagne Pound Cake.
Here are a few more of our favorite "Boozy Cakes" (including Limoncello Cake, Pina Colada Cake, and more) that are sure to make your special occasions more special.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't miss our full collection of Cake Recipes, which include our favorite cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!
If you are interested in cake design, we have so many free Cake Decorating tutorials to share with you as well!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Pink Champagne Cake {Scratch Recipe}
Ingredients
For the Pink Champagne Cake
- 3 cups (342 g) cake flour
- 1 Tablespoon (15 g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (2g) salt
- 6 egg whites (194g)
- 1 cup (242g) pink champagne, I used Andre Blush Champagne
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil 18 g
- 2 cups (400g) sugar
- 2 sticks (226 g total) unsalted butter, softened slightly
- Small amount of pink food color I used AmeriColor Deep Pink but any pink would be fine. I added the color with a toothpick, just a small amount will give you blush pink
For the Pink Champagne Buttercream* This is a Double Batch
- 4 sticks (452g total) unsalted butter, softened *See Notes
- 12 cups (1380g) powdered sugar
- 4 teaspoons (16g) vanilla
- 1 teaspoon (6g) salt
- ½ cup (122g) pink champagne
- Pink Coloring Gel of Choice We used a touch of Americolor Deep Pink
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and grease & flour three 8 inch round pans. We also like to line the pans with circles of parchment paper.
- In a medium size bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside
- In another bowl combine the egg whites, champagne, vanilla and vegetable oil. Whisk until blended and set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, mix the butter and sugar on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
- While mixing on low speed, and the flour mixture and egg whites mixture alternately. Start and end with the dry ingredients. We do three additions of dry ingredients and two additions of wet. Mix just until incorporated.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted the center comes out clean. Cool in baking pans 10 min. then turn out.
- *Makes 7 ½ cups of batter.
For the Pink Champagne Buttercream
- Cream the softened butter until smooth and lightened in color
- Blend in the salt and vanilla
- Gradually add the powdered sugar with the champagne until the powdered sugar is incorporated. Beat at medium speed 3 to 4 minutes. The texture will become very smooth. If you are tinting the entire batch of buttercream light pink, you can add a very small amount of coloring gel while it is mixing.
- This recipe makes approximately 8 cups of frosting.
Hi Carol, I am sorry your cake did not rise to the correct height. This could be caused by a number of things. It could have been that your baking powder was out of date or an incorrect amount was used, an incorrect amount of liquid or mixing the batter for too long or at too high a speed. It is best to not beat above medium speed. Also, if 8 inch pans were not used the cake will not be as tall. For you comment on weighing the cup before adding the flour, that is not necessary. When using a digital scale there is a Tare (Zero) button on the scale. So when weighing flour, sugar, etc., you will place a bowl on the scale, then press the Tare button. This sets the scale to zero so the scale only shows the weight of the ingredient in the bowl, the weight of the bowl is removed. Let me know if you have other questions.
great recipie, thanks
I made this cake for a ladies card game and asked them to be honest as to whether they liked it or not. I do not like Champagne so I didn't think I would be a good judge. They all raved about the cake! I made it once before on a different recipe and it was a flop. Went right in to the trash can. This cake was moist, tasty and was a hit. All 7 of us said this recipe is definitely a keeper and will be my go to for a Champagne Cake!!! I even liked it and as I said, I don't care of Champagne! Thank you so much!!!
Hi Dawna, I'm so happy to hear that you all loved the recipe! Your picture is too cute, thanks so much for your feedback! xoxo
I’m going to make a cake for my daughters wedding. Will make a 10”, 8” and 6”. Is this cake too dense in either the scratch or store bought cake for stacking? Also want to incorporate strawberries into the frosting as well. I live in Colorado, what adjustments do I need to make for high altitudes? Thank you Judy
Hi Judy, The scratch version of the Pink Champagne cake is a bit softer than the doctored (cake mix) version, so the doctored might be better for stacking. I think the scratch recipe would be ok, we just have not tried it. We have a Strawberry Buttercream recipe in the recipe section that you might like to check out. It has pureed strawberries as an ingredient so you would need to refrigerate the completed cake. Keep in mind that if you slice fresh strawberries to use in between the layers, the strawberries will release a lot of juice which could soften the cake or leak through the frosting causing problems for you. We do not have first hand experience with high altitude baking as we live near sea level. Here is a link to a Craftsy post that I think you will find helpful
https://www.craftsy.com/baking/article/how-to-bake-at-high-altitude/
I am making a wedding cake, square, 10", 8", and 6". Could you tell me how many times I need to multiply this recipe to get enough for those size cakes? I have 2" tall pans and will make double layers. Thanks a bunch, can't wait to try this!
Hi Kimmery, I most often use the cake batter amounts from Karen's Kitchen Chart, here is the link
The recipe makes 7 1/2 cups batter. The 6" pans need 2 cups batter per pan
8 " pans need 3 cups per pan
10" pans need 6 cups per pan
I think if you triple the recipe you will have enough. Do you have a mixer large enough to accommodate this?
Thank you! Yes I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I'm sure it can handle it. :-)
I must be figuring wrong.....in the July 1 comment, you state that 8” pans need 3 cups per pan, but this recipe says to be baked in 3 (8 inch) pans. Since this recipe makes 7-1/2 cups, does that not leave you short 1-1/2 cups?
Hi Lytane, In the July 1 comment I was linking her to the Karen's Kitchen chart that suggests 3 cups per pan. We use that batter amount chart as well as Wiltons Chart as a guideline, but you do not need to strictly stick to it. There are times we want 3 layers for our cakes because we want more filling per slice and we just like the way it looks. The layers will not be as tall but the finished cake will look good. Just divide the batter between the 3 pans. I'm glad you asked, others may have the same question.
Made this cake last week for my girlfriend’s birthday. All the girls at our lunch loved it! I filled it with the pink champagne buttercream and frosted it with an Italian vanilla buttercream. Definitely adding this recipe to my favorites!