As a child of the eighties watching The A-Team, I always used to smile when Hannibal said "I love it when a plan comes together". Well, that could have been my line today at The Madhouse !
I'd picked up some pomegranates at the market on Sunday but nobody was really eating them so I decided to do something a bit special with them.
I carefully peeled off the skin and separate the little grains into a bowl. Now, how would I transform them into something utterly delicious? They have a lovely colour and texture, acting as little flavour bombs when you bite into them, so I had the idea of sprinkling them on top of a cupcake.
I used my basic cupcake recipe :
110g/4oz butter
110g/4oz caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
110g/4oz self-raising flour
1-2 tbsp milk if necessary
I creamed the butter (keep it at room temperature for a while beforehand to make it easier) and sugar, added the eggs and decided to add a generous sprinkle of vanilla salt. (I told you I was looking for new ways to use it - there's a lot of trial and error going on at the moment !)
I replaced the milk with a few tablespoons full of low fat strawberry yogurt, to give it some extra flavour and a lovely moist texture.
I also decided to get experimental and mix in a generous scoopful of pomegranate flesh.
This gave me enough mixture to fill nine heart-shaped silicon cupcake cases.
While they cooked (about 12-15 minutes at 180°C), I mixed up some simple icing with more strawberry yogurt, some icing sugar and a quick splash of red food colouring (because I was using unrefined golden icing sugar which has a slightly unappetising yellowy colour).
When the cakes had cooled, Sophie took over and drizzled the icing over the top then sprinkled more pomegranate flesh over the top.
They looked really pretty but what would they taste like?
They're lovely ! I wasn't sure how the pomegranate would survive cooking but it did - the little grains didn't burst so you still get little flavour bombs studded throughout the moist cake, as well as on top of the icing.
Suddenly the kids have all declared that they love pomegranate and started asking if I can buy some more, despite ignoring them in the fruit bowl for the past week !
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Tried to comment yesterday with ipad, but it disappeared. Just wanted to say These cupcakes look scrummy. I love pomegranates. Don't bin the skins, dry them & make a healing drink with honey when someone has the diarrhea
ReplyDeleteOooh I didn't know that, about the skins. Pomegranates always remind me of our trip to Turkey :)
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