Pink Moon Champagne Cake

The Pink Moon, or the full moon in April, ushers in the season of early spring flowers, gathering fresh eggs in your apron and finding reasons to play in the garden.

To celebrate it, I’m sharing with you this gorgeous pink moon champagne cake.

Decorated with real, fresh spring flowers, it’s an easy way to give your spring festivities a professional touch without the professional price tag.

Celebrating the Pink Moon

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the Pink Moon was so named because it preludes the appearance of wild pink ground phlox flowers.  

Also called the New Grass Moon, the April full moon is perfect for “spells of cultivation.”  New projects, new relationships and new ideas flourish under this moon.  So take advantage of all that hopeful energy and get something started!

Bless this cake for new beginning, fresh starts and hope.

Metaphysical Properties

I discussed most of the ingredients in this recipe, like eggs, milk, sugar and butter, at length in my other kitchen witch recipes.

But a couple of them deserve a special mention for their role in spring food magic.

Champagne 

The fresh, dreamy taste of champagne evokes the light, airy, starlit quality of the natural world in spring.  

Champagne lights up a brunch table with the emerging euphoria of the season.

For a detailed description of champagne and spring rites, check out my champagne deviled eggs.

In this recipe, I chose a Moscato wine.  Technically not a champagne (which only comes from the Champagne region of France), but sweet sparkling wine that compliments this cake nicely.

Real Flowers

If you know your way around a baker’s kitchen, you probably know how to make those cutesy frosting roses and whatnot.

But to me, there’s nothing easier and more beautiful that real, fresh flowers in spring dishes and baking.

I even use them to garnish my cocktails.

If you know where to find edible wildflowers in your area (free of pesticides, ect), then by all means, use those!)

Otherwise, choose organic flowers from your local florist.  For this cake, I selected pink, white and fuschia flowers to symbolize the Pink Moon.

Ingredients

For the cake:

-2.5 cups all-purpose flower

-3 egg whites plus 1 whole egg

-1 tsp salt

-2.5 tsp baking powder

-1.5 sticks butter at room temp

-1.5 cups sugar

-2 tsp vanilla

-1 cup champagne or sparkling wine

For the Icing:

-1 stick butter at room temperature

-2 cups confectioner’s sugar

-1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

-splash of milk

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, beating until smooth.  Incorporate eggs into butter/sugar mixture, then add vanilla.

Add champagne, blending until fully incorporated.

Sift together flour, salt and baking powder.  Add in batches to sugar/butter mixture,.

Do not over mix.  Blend until just smooth.

Step 2

Divide into 2 well-greased pans.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out of the cake clean.

Step 3

While cake is baking, make the frosting.

Slowly blend confectioner’s sugar into softened butter.  Add a splash of milk to thin slightly.  Add vanilla and stir until evenly distributed.  

Step 4

Remove baked cakes from oven.

Allow cakes to cool completely before turning out on a clean, flat surface.

Step 5

While cakes are cooling, trace a pattern for the crescent moon shape.

Using one of the pans you used to bake your cake, trace out a circle on a piece of parchment paper.

Then, move the pan slightly off center, and trace a moon like this.

Step 6

Cut out the crescent moon shape.

Frost the cooled cakes, stacking one on top of the other.

Place the parchment crescent moon pattern on top of the cake.

Don’t worry if there is overlap, like this.  You will see that it doesn’t really matter.

Step 7

Using a straight edge (not serrated) knife, trace the inside edge of the moon on your cake to use as a guideline for arranging the flowers.

Arrange flowers inside the curved line.  If you have many different kinds of flowers (like I did) it looks nice to arrange them randomly.

But you could also do a single kind of flower (like pink tea roses) for a more uniform look.

Serve and enjoy!