POMEGRANATE LEMON CUPCAKES

I wanted to start the year off right so I decided to make a batch of cupcakes for my family to take to my aunt's new year's dinner. It's a tradition that we go to her house for dinner on new year's day but I had other plans but wanted to whip up a batch of cupcakes anyway. I settled on pomegranate cupcakes seeing as we had a couple of white pomegranates in the fridge about 24-hours away from the compost bin.

After frosting and decorating, this is what I came out with...24 standards, 12 of which I frosted:and the other 12 I left unfrosted for my mom and 20 minis for my relatives:Here's a standard aerial close-up:and a mini in profile:Pomegranate lemon cupcakes with pomegranate frosting, topped with white sugar dust and pink sanding sugar. There are actual white pomegranate arils in the cupcakes that held their shape during baking.

The frosting was a little too tart for me. Instead of using some kind of pomegranate juice, I ended up using pomegranate molasses, perhaps a little bit too much, but Sean said he'd probably like them so I'm going to give the rest of them to him and his family.

I also used white pomegranate instead of the regular red pomegranate because that's what I had in my house but if I ever made these cupcakes again, which I probably would, altering the frosting (perhaps cream cheese would be better?) I would use red pomegranate seeds for the batter instead.

Anyhoo, great way to start off baking in 2010!

2009 FOOD RECAP

Sadly this will be my last recap of food from 2009. There's going to be a little bit of everything to cover. Double sadly, not all of it is awesome but at least we're starting on a good note.

So you know your boyfriend is totally awesome (and so is the rest of his family), when they smuggle coconut macaroons from the Mandarin for you and then wrap it up as if it's a Christmas present:Christmas dinner at my house...salad, roast potatoes, turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce.

Late night snack in my new favourite Olympic mascots mug...Tetly chai tea (from a tea bag!) steeped in organic 2% and below is a white pomegranate.
I love these Christmas bowls I picked up from the Dollarama a couple of years back. They're perfect for mise-en-place baking and for holding snack foods. Only half of this pomegranate was consumed.

Lunch at work on the 30th...turkey soup with potatoes, carrots and barley.
Snack bento of cherries, clementine, whole wheat Triscuits and brie.
And then late at night, this was consumed because it was hanging around:
A Cadbury Triple Chocolat snack cake. It was okay considering I'm not a huge fan of chocolate. I got this for free from Blockbuster while renting Food, Inc so don't count me as one of those people that would ever buy this again.