flour & eggs

pomegranate cupcakes and cream cheese frosting 

Whilst there is only so much you can do with a cupcake, this has transformed them, for me, into something spectacularly christmassy. There is definitely something romantically festive about pomegranates, that is no secret, and so I think these would be the perfect accompaniment to a Christmas buffet. You can use any buttercream to frost them, but I think they work especially well with the cream cheese. 

Note: this will yield about 18 smaller cupcakes, or 12 large muffins. 

ingredients

• 25g cornflour
• 200g plain flour
• 2 tsp cream of tartar 
• 1 tsp bicarb of soda 
• 140g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 220ml milk
• 60g pomegranate molasses
• 120ml corn/sunflower oil
• Red food colour (I prefer the pastes)

(for the topping)

• 80g butter
• 500g icing sugar
• 250g cream cheese
• seeds of 1/2 pomegranate

method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan, and line a muffin pan with 12 - 18 muffin cases (see note above).
2. Sift the flours, cream of tartar and soda together into a bowl, and add the sugar.
3. In another bowl mix together the eggs, milk, molasses and oil, then fold into the dry ingredients. Add as much colour as you need to get a dark pink. Divide equally between the cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.
4. For the frosting, place the butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until everything turns to crumbs. Add the cream cheese and blitz again until consistent and smooth. 
5. When the cakes are cool, pipe the buttercream on top, and sprinkle over some pomegranate seeds. To get my two-toned buttercream, split the buttercream, dye half with red food colouring, and fill the piping bag with one side white and one red.