Tuesday 16 November 2010

Saffron and cardamom cupcakes

Having been away from the blog for such a long time I felt I had to make up for it with two posts today!

About a month ago I was asked if I could have a cupcake stand at the yearly IWOG (International Women's Organisation of Greece) Christmas Bazaar the 4th of December. I am only too happy to oblige! I get to play around with different tastes for Christmas-themed cupcakes and decorations, which is all good fun!

I have already been thinking of different flavours for a while now, and with my mother-in-law's birthday last week I got the change to bake a batch of saffron and cardamom cupcakes I have been meaning to bake for a while.

For me saffron and cardamom are the two spices used in some traditional Swedish sweet buns they make for St. Lucia day (the 13th of December)called "lussekatter". We also make them in Norway and they taste absolutely heaven when made with real saffron. Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, but luckily as they also are produced in Greece they aren't too expensive (well, almost €3 for 1g, all is relative!). They create a lovely yellow colour and they have a lovely, lovely fragance which I cannot even begin to describe!

The recipe I used came extremly close to the taste of "lussekatter", especially since I replaced the vanilla with cardamom. As the taste of the cakes themselves is so fantastic I didn't want a frosting that could potentially overpower the saffron taste, so opted for a lemon cream cheese frosting. The lemon taste was subtle and it really complemented the cake itself.

I was going to make candied lemon peel as decoration for these cupcakes, but I thought it would make the frosting too sweet and destroy the whole balance between the saffron and cardamom cake and the frosting, so decided to use only a little grated lemon peel for a nice, yellow contrasting effect to the white frosting.

Personally I thought these cupcakes tasted heavenly and they do taste of Christmas! I guess saffron is an aquired taste, so still not sure if I'll bake them for the IWOG Christmas bazaar though. Time will show!







6 comments:

  1. yummy piece of bite!! ;)
    keep it coming...!

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  2. How beautiful! The saffron really lights up the cupcakes and I like the addition of caradmom (which when in sweets, reminds me of Nordic buns :) ).

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  3. SV: Thanks! She really is <3

    I`ve admired your cupcakes at BP for a long time, and wonder, do you have a recipe for a salt cupcake?

    Xoxo-FatallyYours

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  4. @Fatally Yours:

    Salt cupcake as in savoury cupcakes? I.e. with bacon, sweetcorn, cheese and other "salty" ingredients?

    I haven't made any savoury cupcakes myself, so my best bet would be to google "savoury cupcakes" and look for the ingredients you would like to use.

    If you want a salty and sweet cupcakes I would google to find a recipe adapted from "Baked" - I have been wanting to try that myself for a while, but maybe you manage before me? :D

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  5. Salt cupcakes with aioli and smoked ham are fantastic! I tried today to make the cupcake from a foccacia recipe, it was great! :D

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  6. Sounds great, FatallyYours! Feel free to send me the recipe ;)

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