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Yesterday I decided to invite all my friends in Greece that see the recipes I post but rarely cook for them to a healthy brunch, to end the Christmas days blissfully! I made gingerbread, buckwheat pancakes with an apple compote (I used pear instead of apple which I think made it more delicious) two delicious fritters (which I sadly didn’t take a picture of), and these incredibly delicious pomegranate cupcakes with Christmas spices, which for me was the most delicious dish: they smell incredibly, they are incredibly fluffy, the juicy pomegranates in the dough are an amazing surprise to the palate, while the deliciously light icing by coconut milk and vanilla blends ideally with the spices and fragrances of the base. This recipe is not mine, I borrowed it from Sarah Britton’s “My New Roots”. Due to the spices, their flavour is quite Christmassy, but nobody will stop you from eating them all year round. For the base, I used spelt flour that is ideal for cakes, breads and sweets as it gives a pretty fluffy effect. Spelt is one of the oldest grains but was quickly abandoned in the industrial age for the sake of wheat, despite the fact that it has a clear superior nutritional value: it consists of cereals that have a fairly high content not only of carbohydrates but also of protein and fibre. In addition, spelt contains significant levels of iron, copper, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, selenium, niacin, thiamine, vitamin B6 and folic acid. You will find it in organic product stores. If you do not have spelt, you can also replace it with a dinkel. Note that spelt contains gluten so it’s not a good choice for those who suffer from celiac!
Ingredients (for about 10-12 cupcakes)
-285gr spelt flour
-85gr maple syrup or coconut sugar
-2 tsp of baking powder
-1 tsp baking soda
– ½ tsp salt
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1 spoon of powdered ginger soup
-1/4 tsp nutmeg
– 2 cardamom seeds
-250 gr dates, pit free
-500 gr of an herbal milk of your choice
-2 tsp of vanilla extract
-125ml melted coconut oil
– seeds from 1.5 pomegranate
For the glaze:
-2 cocoa milk cans with all the fat, frozen the night before
– 3 spoons of maple syrup
-1/2 tsp of fresh Madagascan vanilla
Preparation:
– Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius
– Stir the flour, baking powder, soda and all spices in a large bowl
– Put the dough in the blender with milk, vanilla extract and coconut oil. Blend in high speed until all the ingredients melt
– Put the liquid ingredients in the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir with a spoon.
– Add to the mixture and pomegranate and stir. If you want, you can leave a few pieces for decoration in the end.
– If the base of your cupcakes is metallic, I would suggest cutting a bit of greaseproof paper into smaller squares (ideal for these cases is Sanitas’ greaseproof paper that is already cut into pieces) or rub some coconut oil.
– Put the mixture on the base and place it in the oven for about 25-35 minutes (remember the toothpick test: after penetrating the cake, the toothpick needs to come out dry or the cake to be ready)
– To make the icing, open the frozen coconut milk cans and try to remove the cream that has been separated from the water and collected at the top of the box with a spoon. Throw away the excess water. Do the same with the second can.
– Put the coconut cream in the mixer and stir at a high speed with the rest of the ingredients until it turns into a cream
– Apply the icing on the cupcakes either with a spoon or with a pastry form
– Decorate pomegranate seeds.
– Store in the fridge!