Margarita Cupcakes

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, which is tomorrow, I made margarita cupcakes!  They are quite delicious. I snagged the recipe from Recipegirl.com - a great website with lots of recipes.  And yes - they actually have real margarita in them!  I love that it has you make a lot of margarita but then you only use a portion of it and the rest is for drinking.  Haha.


Cake batter:
9 ounces liquid Margarita mix (a little over a cup)
3 ounces tequila (a little less then 1/3 cup)
3/4 ounce of Grand Marnier
1 box white cake mix
3 large egg whites
2 Tbs vetetable oil
1 Tbs lime zest

Lime Buttercream Frosting:
2 sticks unsalted butter (1 cup), at room temp
5-6 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbs fresh lime juice
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp grated lime zest
green food coloring, if desired
small lime slices for garnish if desired (like key limes)

1.  Preheat oven to 350*.  Line two dozen cupcake tins with paper liners.

2. Whisk together margarita mix, tequila and Grand Marnier in a small bowl. Measure out 1¼ cups for the recipe; pour the rest on some ice and drink it while making the cupcakes.

3. In a large bowl, blend cake mix, egg whites, vegetable oil, lime zest and 1¼ cups of the margarita mix from step 1. Blend on low for about 30 seconds and then increase speed to medium and blend for two additional minutes. Batter will be slightly lumpy.

4. Spoon the batter into cupcake liners (about ¾ full). Bake for 20-25 min, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool for about 10 minutes in the pans, then remove them to a rack to cool completely.

5. Once cucpakes are completely cooled, prepare the icing. Place butter in a large bowl and beat with electric mixer until butter is fluffy. Add 5 cups of powdered sugar, salt, lime juce, and lime zest. Mix until thick and creamy. Add more powdered sugar until the frosting is of a good spreading (or piping) consistency. Mix in a tiny amount of green food coloring or gel paste if you’d like the frosting to have a green tint. Ice cupcakes in whatever manner you prefer… spreading or piping the frosting. Use small lime slices as garnish.

Yield: About 24

As a side note:  I used pre-made margarita mix (the bottle with everything in it already) instead of mix, tequila and Grand Marnier and it worked fine.  Also, if I was going to do it again I would add the lime zest after I frosted the cupcakes because the zest clogged up my piping bag and made the frosting come out like silly string spray.  Neat effect but hard to squeeze out.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!