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" 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 Cake? 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.
Hello, can you explain how you piped the circle design on this cake? It looks beautiful!
Thank you!
I could only find Verde Raspberry sparkling wine. Will there need to be any modifications to the doctored cake mix recipe or this frosting recipe? Since mine is sweet?
Hi Hilary, It will be fine to use your Raspberry sparkling wine with no changes to the recipe.
I made a test run of this cake. I want to make it for my future daughter in law’s bridal shower! The cake is very tasty! I didn’t have unsalted butter, but will use that next time. The frosting tasted too salty with salted butter and the salt called for in the recipe. Also, I will chill the frosting before piping, it was a hot day!
I ended up doing 9.5 cups of sugar instead since the champagne was so sweet & I wanted more whipped cream consistency frosting - came out amazing! Really enjoyed the Verde Raspberry sparking wine in both the frosting and the cake. Could be a good option too for people worried about alcohol percent since this is only 5% alcohol.
Came out great for our princess relaxed themed bday party with the Verde Raspberry
Hi Hilary, Your cake is very pretty! Thank you for the follow-up on using Verde Raspberry sparkling wine, helpful information to others who use the recipe. I'm happy you enjoyed the cake at your princess themed party!
Hi i am interested in making this cake for a wedding shower - however the mom and aunt want to taste it first - is there anyway you can tell me what measurements would be for a 6 inch round cake and also for the frosting? i don't want to have to make the 3 layered cake recipe and waste half of the ingredients?? Any help on this would be great! i want to make the taste testing cake this weekend!!
thank you so much! :)
Hi Robyn! You should be fine to half the recipes for both. That's the most that I've reduced a recipe.
thank you so much for your response! :)
Like many communities, COVID really knocked some businesses off their feet. In my community, it was a popular bakery, well known for its cakes, that succumbed under the crush of the pandemic and health issues for the owner. A family favorite of ours is Pink Champagne cake. Our bakery was the only bakery who could make not only pretty cakes, but GOOD cakes. You know how you come across a bakery that has fun looking cupcakes with exotic flavors and decorating or cookies and cake dressed up looking like it was heading to the ball, but ended up bowling with burgers and fries instead? Our baker could BAKE! The cake alone was good. If you can't enjoy the cake, the frosting can't save it. Because everyone failed miserably at making this beloved cake for birthdays and celebrations, I searched for a recipe and came across this one. I can bake, I thought. And I certainly can't do any worse than the last 4 years of $60 disappointments.
You guys, this recipe rocked my world. This cake was so insanely moist and easy to pull together, I am kicking myself for having poured money down the drain. This cake rivals our once treasured bakery. I brought this cake in a cake box for a birthday and my mother-in-law wondered where I got the cake. She was floored when she found out I made it.
I am going to warn you all, though. This cake will make you cocky and arrogant because it comes together so well. Follow the instructions. The measurements are spot on (and for those who worry, weighing the ingredients makes for a more precise execution of the bake).
Thank you for this outstanding recipe! You have saved many celebrations to come and it has been bookmarked my friend.
Blessings to you and yours.
Hi Kimberly- Thank you so much for your review of the Pink Champagne Cake! You made our day ;0) We are so glad that you all enjoyed it! Here's to many more years of champagne cakes to come xoxo
Cake looks so pretty. Would love this for a 10 inch 4 layer wedding tall cake. 4 tiers. Must I double or triple recipe? Will it withstand 3 more tiers on top?🙏
If you are doing 4 tiers of cake, just be sure to add either bubble straws or bamboo cake dowel rods to each of the 3 bottom tiers, iv you haven’t ever did this, the milkshakes or bubble straws will be easiest. Put one in the bottom tier and cut it at the frosting level, cut the rest to match. Do this for the next 2 tiers, don’t cut them all at once, since the tiers aren’t going to be exactly the same height. Use the cardboard separate around the same size as your cake under each tier. 💕💞 this is a wonderful recipe.
Morning
Can this recipe be used for cupcakes as well?
I have been using this recipe a few times before and just love it. The texture is almost velvet like and it is super is absolutely out of this world.
Thank you for sharing your recipes.
Hi Catherine, We have not baked cupcakes with the recipe but it should work well. For standard size cupcakes bake at 350 degrees F for 18 to 20 minutes.Thank you so much for your nice review of the recipe, we appreciate your feedback.