Pomegranate Green Tea Cupcakes

These were quite sophisticated ;o)

Yes, this picture has been "shopped." And very novice-ly at that... I took the pictures of these cupcakes in the flourescent lighting of my kitchen and the colors were just very off. So I flexed my amateur photoshop muscles and present to you my shopped photos. Please don't make fun- I'm really a horrible photographer and even worse photoshopper... kthanks.

I read a lot about matcha powder in cupcakes and immediately put it on my "must have" list of ingredients. I really had to try my best not to use all of the matcha powder for tea and save some for baking- this tea is beyond words. Especially right before a hefty 90 minute yoga routine... sends me into a state of bliss similar to cupcake baking :) Anyways, I sunk $20 into this little tin of wonder at the local Teavana after much searching. I went into a few "tea stores" and people looked at me like I had three heads, and one with three eyes, when I asked for Matcha or green tea powder. So when I finally found it, $20 didn't seem unreasonable for what seemed to be this powder made of dreams. So worth it. I actually had this sitting around for some time before I finally made cupcakes with it because I kept having actual reasons to bake (or people to bake for) and I figured these wouldn't be the kind of cupcakes that everyone would like. Overall, I really liked them. The texture of the cakes was light and fluffy and I loved the balance of the sweet cake and the earthy but tangy frosting. My coworkers graciously stated that they liked them even after I warned them that the matcha wasn't a flavor for everyone.

So I hunkered down and searched for recipes. Most of what I found was matcha cupcakes with pomegranate frosting, but I really wanted to do it the other way around. So I used this recipe from Pandas and Cupcakes with one minor change:

Pomegranate Cupcakes
2 cups All Purpose Flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (3/4 cup)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract*
1/4 cup milk
1 cup POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
Seeds from one pomegranate
(something I thought would be good to add after I made them: a tablespoon of lemon zest..something I shall try next time!)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl, set aside.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add vanilla extract and milk, plus half the flour mixture. Mix together until combined. Add the pomegranate juice and other half of the flour mixture, mix together until combined.
Pour batter into prepared cupcake pan (or whatever you prefer using). Add 5-8 pomegranate seeds to top of batter. Bake in oven for 22 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.

*In the original blog, it was mentioned that some lemon zest would be a good addition, so I added about a teaspoon of lemon extract since I didn't have a lemon on hand. I took a ton of photos of the process because the colors were so vibrant. And I also chugged the remaining pomegranate juice. I could suck down straight Pom Wonderful all day and never get sick of it...

This is the Matcha I used... according to the guy at Teavana, it's the highest quality stuff you can get in the US. Kinda of made it seem like an illegal transaction when he put it that way.

These are the cupcakes post-oven and before they started shrinking (remember, higher sugar content, which in this case came from the pomegranate juice, causes shrinkage).

I also made some minis since I had these awesome liners in such a vibrant color. They actually ended up looking great with the green frosting.

You can see in the background that some of them got a little brown on me (although they weren't as brown in real life- they just look worse in this pic due to some of my photoshopping. I failed to realize for the first batch that I should have reduced the temperature to 325 and baked longer since there was a higher sugar content in them, but I fixed the issue for the subsequent batches.

On to the frosting... I used a recipe that I found Here

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup or 1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted (more if needed)

2 tbsn. matcha powder

combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until smooth. Turn the mixer on low and add the powdered sugar, vanilla and matcha. Add more powdered sugar if needed until you get the right consistency. Beat on high until light and fluffy and everything is well incorporated. Frost the cupcakes when cooled completely.

*I was really hesitant to use 2 tbsp of matcha, and not just because that was the equivalent of like $8 worth of powder. I was worried that it would be a little overpowering and not everyone would enjoy matcha as much as I do. So I started off with 1 tbsp and ended up using around 2, because 1 barely had any matcha flavor to it at all.

I happened to be wearing a matcha-esque shirt, and my frosting came out to be almost exactly the same color :)

My frosted full-size ones. The frosting was a little on the thin side, possibly because of the extra beating to incorporate the few additions of matcha until I was happy with the flavor. So I decided to get creative and play with the piping. They didn't turn out as cute as I had hoped, but not terrible nonetheless.

These were the minis. I took them to the State Attorneys office since I had a trial and needed to find a home for these. Never heard back if they liked them or not, but they didn't die so I guess that's a good sign?

In conclusion: I need a nice camera. I mean, the one we have is new, and nice. But I need like a really nice one that takes good shots instead of this silly point-and-shoot. Or I need someone to show me how to make this point-and-shoot into something that takes better looking pictures. I also need to brush up on some photoshop techniques... but I liked these cupcakes. They were very... cleansing. Which is fitting since the pomegranate and matcha components contained super antioxidants. I made them at a time when I was strongly considering purging some toxic "friends" from my life and moving on. I ended up doing just that, and I feel great now. Much like I did after enjoying one of these lil treats :)