Thursday, March 27, 2008

Orange Cupcakes With Green Pine Needles Frosting

orange cupcakes with green pine needles frosting


Cupcakes: (adapted from Recipezaar)

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2/3 tsp backing powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
zest of one orange
1 egg

Sift flour, salt and backing powder in a bowl. Add 7/8 cup sugar, oil, milk and beat with an electric mixer for 1 minute. Add orange juice, zest, egg yolk and beat for another minute.

In another bowl beat egg white with the remaining sugar (1/8 cup), and then carefully fold it with a spoon into the dough.

Bake in a preheated oven on 180°C for about 15-20 minutes, or until cupcakes are done.



orange cupcake with green pine needles frosting


Frosting:

1 egg white
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup of green pine needles syrup


green pine needles syrup green pine needles syrup


Beat the egg white with salt and set aside. Boil syrup for just a few minutes.

While syrup is still hot, pour it carefully into the egg whites while beating with an electric mixer constantly. When the mass start looking like a meringue it's done and then frost the cupcakes (do not wait frosting to dry out).



orange cupcakes with green pine needles frosting



Note: This is a part of Weekend herb blogging event, this week hosted by The Houndstooth Gourmet.


More cupcakes recipes:
Hibiscus marshmallow cupcakes
Chicory cupcakes

14 comments:

tinymango! said...

i am loving your cupcake recipes!

syrup of pine needles, huh? i will have to find that. i've never heard of it before and i love new ingredients. what else would you use it in?

linda said...

Never heard of pine needle syrup...can you tell us more about it? Is it traditionally Serbian?
The cupcakes look delicious.

Coffee & Vanilla said...

Very interesting recipe... and great blog.
Margot

Marija said...

Yes Linda, this syrup is traditionally Serbian, but I don't think people make it at home anymore. I first had a chance to taste it when this product showed up in the stores and loved it! Right now I'm in a search for authentic recipe to try make it myself.

Lauren said...

Marija, this looks fantastic! I live in Bulgaria and we have pine needle syrup too - it's "borov med" here, maybe the same thing in Srbski. It is still made at home in lots of villages - basically, you dump a bunch of pine needles and pine cones in a vat with tons of sugar and water and boil it for a week. One of my favorite Balkan foods - I will miss it dearly when I move back to the U.S. this summer.

I'm excited to see a recipe with this stuff and can't wait to try it!

Sharon said...

pine needle frosting! what a wonderful idea! these look amazing!

The Cazacs said...

You might want to check this out. I recognized your photo, and wasn't sure if you knew about this or not. http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/gallery.php?rid=163500

tessa said...

wow! these are beautiful. i also haven't heard of pine needle syrup and am fascinated!

Stef said...

Pine needle syrup? Facinating! I'm going to have to try that sometime.

Marija said...

Yes, that is my photo on Recipezaar, I uploaded it myself, since I used that recipe for my cupcakes. :)

Kalyn said...

What a great post for WHB! I love it that you've managed to write about a completely unique ingredient. Never heard of this before, but it sounds very interesting.

Anna said...

such an interesting ingredient. it sounds great.
i would love to try it one day.
oh, and the cupcakes look great too :)

stonemaven said...

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/archives/best/1996/juniper.html
has a recipe, but I don't know how authentic it is.

Marija said...

Thank you so much Stonemaven, I'll check it out.