Masquerade Birthday Party

This year my birthday fell within a month of my wedding. I was pretty 'celebrated out' but since it was my 25th, I didn't want to completely ignore it. Everyone in my life had spent a lot of time preparing and celebrating the wedding so I just decided to host a little party at our place. It was supposed to be a joint party with KM since her birthday is only a week from mine, but she ended up getting appendicitis the day of! She's ended up recovering well but unfortunately had to miss our party.

While in Florence for our honeymoon, I had picked up a lace mask which is where the inspiration came from. Guests brought appetizers and I baked pink champagne cupcakes with little toppers I had made. Due to time reasons on the day of, I picked this recipe off of the Betty Crocker website. I like champagne and pink so when the recipe popped up in a search, I knew they'd be perfect! I put up a few decorations, lots of flowers, and we played Celebrity!

Pink Champagne Cupcakes

1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® white cake mix

1 1/4 cups champagne

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 egg whites

4 to 5 drops red food color

Champagne Frosting

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup champagne

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 to 5 drops red food color

Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Place paper baking cup in each of 24 regular-size muffin cups. In large bowl, mix dry cake mix and champagne. Add oil, egg whites and food color. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed 2 minutes. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake 17 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes. In medium bowl, beat frosting ingredients with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Frost cupcakes. Sprinkle with garnishes. Store loosely covered.

They were cute and you could even tell they had champagne in them by how light they were!  

Since people are always getting their cups mixed up, I put tags on the glasses we used. Guests wrote their own names on and they looked classier than red solo cups! 

It was a fun gathering and I enjoyed spending a low key birthday with my friends!

"Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne." ~ Dorothy Parker