The combination of cherry and vanilla is one of my favorite flavor combinations. Cherry combined with anything generally makes me happy. But cherry vanilla is a really perfect flavor. When Coca-Cola came out with cherry vanilla coke I was really excited to try it. More importantly, I was really excited to use it in a dessert. That was the inspiration for these Cherry Vanilla Coca-Cola Cupcakes.
This wasn't the first time I had put soda into baked goods. I first learned about putting coca-cola into a cake when I was a teenager. Which is when I first tried to make the famous Cracker Barrel Coca-Cola Cake. And I totally fell in love with how the cola flavor melded together with the chocolate flavor. I've made a lot of Coca-Cola cakes since then, and a few root beer cakes as well. But the Coca-Cola cake is almost always chocolate. With the flavor of the new Coca-Cola soda being cherry vanilla I thought that for this recipe I should make sure that the cake was a white cake, rather than chocolate.
I wasn't entirely sure how these cupcakes would turn out, especially since I don't think I have seen anyone make vanilla cupcakes with cola in them. Despite the fact that there is cola in both the cake and the frosting, these cupcakes aren't overly sweet. In fact I was shocked that they ended up being the perfect level of sweetness on my first try at making these. The cherry flavor ends up being really subtle, and the cupcakes are moist and yummy.
How to make Cherry Vanilla Coca-Cola Cupcakes
The cake part of these cupcakes is really simple. You basically just throw everything in a mixing bowl, mix it up, put it in a cupcake tin and bake it. The frosting is also simple, but it requires you to boil down the soda into a thicker more syrupy liquid before making the frosting. If you don't boil it down the flavor of the soda wont be concentrated enough to come out in the final product. Frost the cupcakes with the frosting, and then top with a maraschino cherry if desired. The cherry makes them look really pretty though!
Cherry Vanilla Coca-Cola Cupcakes
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Yield: 12 cupcakes 1x
- Category: Dessert
Ingredients
- 8 tbsp butter (melted)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ¾ cup cherry vanilla Coca-Cola
- 1.5 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
Frosting
- 1 cup cherry vanilla Coca-Cola
- 8 tbsp butter
- 1.5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp milk
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a cupcake pan, or put 12 cupcake liners in the wells of a cupcake pan. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl add the melted butter and sugar and mix until combines. Add in the egg until incorporated, then mix in the vanilla. Add the cherry vanilla Coca-Cola to the mix and combine thoroughly. Whisk in the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk until the batter is smooth.
- Fill cupcake pan wells each ⅔ full, then bake in the pre-heated oven for 18-22 minutes, until the cupcakes are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of one cupcake comes out clean.
Frosting
- In a small saucepan heat the cherry vanilla coke on medium heat until boiling, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the liquid reduces by half. Chill the cherry vanilla coca-cola liquid in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes until it is cool.
- In a mixing bowl beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium until it is fluffy (about a minute). Add in the coca-cola syrup, powdered sugar and milk and continue mixing until the mixture becomes frosting.
