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.
So I have solved the problem with this cake using the reverse creaming method. The pan makes NO difference! Liz Marek explains it well on Sugar geek show but basically...all dry ingredients in the kitchen aid bowl..chunk in butter until course sand...add.8 oz of champagne, oil, flavors , colorAnd mix 2 minutes, very important or it won’t rise. Then add the egg whites and rest of champagne in three additions so it doesn’t break the mixture, then done. No well in the center and it bakes up great! I increased the oil a bit. Do not over bake it! Good luck.
Hi Bebe,
Thanks for the quick reply! I appreciate it! It is okay that you do not have more first-hand experience with this! I will follow the instructions gave by Jennifer White and see how it goes. I will come back to tell you about my experience! Thanks a lot for your attention!
Dear Jennifer White,
I wanna say THANK YOU so much for helping me by giving this wonderful solution!=) I have enough time to do some test run and see how it goes. So I am definitely accepting your suggestions!=) You said that Liz Marek gives an explanation about that on Sugar Geek Show, so I am gonna try to find it, but I guess maybe this is just something for members, although I do know she has a lot of free videos because I follow her on FB and Instagram. You said also that you increased the oil a bit...can I think of double the amount ...maybe? Thanks again for sharing your experience! BTW, I was looking at your website and it is a lovely one!
The technic Liz talks about is in a free recipe or video. When I make this, I triple the recipe for my 7 qt kitchen aid bowl so I can use the entire bottle of champagne. In the triple recipe I use 3/4 cup of oil. Spend the outrageous money and buy the Amoretti champagne extract or compound. It makeS a big difference and is great in plain buttercream. Good luck!
Hi Jenniffer, thanks for all the valuable information! I'll give it a try and I'll come back to share my experience! Thanks again!
P.S.: I am following you on Instagram now to see more of your beautiful creations! ?
I made the champagne cake (doctored cake mix recipe) for my daughter's wedding. The recipe made for a wonderful cake. It was so successful that my daughter volunteered me to make a cake for her maid of honor's wedding. The only difference is she does not want champagne. What should I use to substitute the champagne? Or is there another recipe for a white cake that would have the same texture and doesn't crumble. It was the best. JudyK
Hi Judy, We have not tried using a substitution, but I did find some online. Scroll up to entry #24 on February 24, 2015. Hope this helps.
Hello there!
As I promised, I came back to share my experience in making the champagne cake in a 26-cm springform. Results? The cake worked perfectly by using the reverse creaming method suggested by Jennifer White. Thanks Jennifer! It was really really delicious! I was so happy that it turned out incredibly delicious! I didn't use champagne but a French Sparkling Wine, and the cake was served with the same wine I made it, and it was A-MAZ-ING!! I was over the moon with the results! I got so many compliments, that I blushed!I also did not use the champagne buttercream, but a white chocolate buttercream, the recipe from Liz Marek(Sugar Geek Show). I'm attaching some pictures, so you can see a bit. This was a test, and I took the cake for the birthday party of my best friend here in The Netherlands. It was a success! I'll made it again in August, but this time for a wedding. Once again, thanks a bunch for the recipe and all the valuable tips. BTW, I tagged mycakeschool and @cupadee on Instagram.
Hi Marcela, I'm glad that it all worked out for you and I love the photo! It's good to know how to adjust cakes to your liking using the creaming method that you prefer. We are probably evenly split on the recipes on our site that use reverse creaming and those that use traditional creaming because some of our readers like the fluffiness and familiarity of the traditional while others like the ease and tighter crumb of reverse. Glad to hear your feedback, this has been a really popular recipe of ours over the years and is still one of my favorites!! ;0)
Hi Melissa,
Your cake looks yummy. I can’t wait to try and make it. I was gluten free for years and since having my gallbladder removed I can have gluten again!!! Yeah! My birthday is Friday and my favorite cake is pink champagne, I miss it so I am going to make it!
I thought you might like to know where exactly the Pink Champagne Cake was originally from. It was originally made in Bremerton, Washington at McGavin’s Bakery. They still make it today and apparently the only one that knows the recipe is the owner. There was an article posted in the Kitsap Sun on April 5, 2001 about it. And his cakes are to die for! Best wedding cake ever!
Hi Cassandra, For standard size cupcakes, bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. This recipes makes 7 1/2 cups batter so you will have more than 24 cupcakes.
I made this cake tonight using fondant outside and whipped cream with slices of strawberries between the layers. While this was a much easier recipe than the 27 step one my daughter originally asked me to do for her birthday, I found the cake didn't rise as I would have expected and was on the dry side to me. Would the reverse screaming method address this?