Royal Wedding Peach Moscato Cupcakes

In honor of the Royal Wedding, I decided to try making some cupcakes from scratch based on a recipe recently posted by "Cupcake Kelly" on her "An American Cupcake in London" blog. Because Will and Kate will have a variation of fruit cake at their wedding reception, she decided to make a version of fruit cake that is probably a bit more tolerable -- Bubbly Peach Cupcakes. The cake is made with champagne and also includes fresh peach chunks that sink to the bottom of the cupcake when baked.

Naturally, I decided to do some tweaking to the recipe and substituted moscato for champagne. I've never been that fond of champagne (and I've tried some really disgusting champagne cakes when I was cake-testing), so I decided to use moscato, a sweet dessert wine. I purchased a bottle of Angioletta Moscato from Hy-Vee. When I got home, I realized I had accidently purchased regular moscato instead of moscato d'Asti. I decided to still use my selection, but the sparkling qualities of d'Asti may have produced a slightly different taste.

Peach Moscato Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick/115g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla (peach flavoring also optional)

1/2 cup moscato or moscato d'Asti

1 cup diced peaches

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line muffin tray with paper liners. In a small bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.

2. With an electric mixer on high speed mix cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time beating until combined. Add in the vanilla and peach flavoring (if using).

3. Add the flour mixture in two batches alternating with the moscato until all incorporated. Fold in the chopped peaches.

4. Fill each cup three quarters full and bake for 25 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Makes 16 cupcakes

For frosting, I used my grandmother's signature vanilla frosting recipe -- it's a family secret! Visit Kelly's blog to see her frosting recipe that included champagne.