Recipe: Saffron and dates cupcakes

A good friend of mine, "A" , gave me a huge bag of  saffron from Iran and she taught me how to make saffron tea to help elevates my mood. I love it so much that I drink it almost every time I'm feeling down. My husband even made fun of me and said it's my "drug" haha.


I love the unique taste of saffron. Not only does it taste good in savory dishes, it also tastes great in desserts. As for that, I made cupcakes with a touch of saffron flavor. The cupcakes has light taste, and you could put more saffron if you want the flavor to be stronger.  I topped the cupcakes with two types of frosting, and we especially love the combination of the cupcakes with the pistachio cream cheese frosting.

Saffron and dates cupcakes
[click for printable version]

Ingredients

Cupcakes
145 g dried dates, chopped into small pieces
120 ml hot water
Two pinches of saffron, infused in 4 tablespoons of hot water
145 g flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
65 g unsalted butter, softened
80 g brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt

Pistachio cream frosting
100 g pistachio, chopped into pieces
200 ml whipped cream
3 tablespoons icing sugar
or

Pistachio cream cheese frosting
100 g pistachio, chopped into pieces
200 g cream cheese, softened
100 g butter, softened
4 tablespoons icing sugar

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Mix dried dates with hot water in a medium sized bowl, set aside.
2. Combine flour and baking powder in a medium sized bowl, set aside. Beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Combine egg one at a time in the butter mixture for 20 seconds followed by a tablespoon of the flour mixture. Put the rest of the flour, saffron water, dates, salt into the batter. Scoop out the batter and fill up the cupcake liners up to 3/4 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
3. While waiting the cupcakes to cool down, prepare your desired frosting. To make the pistachio cream frosting, beat whipped cream and icing sugar until hard peak forms, fold in the chopped pistachio into the cream. To make the pistachio cream cheese frosting, beat the butter with icing sugar until fluffy followed by the cream cheese and fold in the chopped pistachio into the cream cheese frosting.

p.s: The weather is getting warmer and the sky is getting sunnier. Wageningen looks so pretty, and I'm going to cherish the days that I'm spending with my loved ones deeply.