quirky cupcake: Cloves

Quirky Cupcake: CLOVES

Blame it on my procastination and lousy ethics tt i took until the date of the deadline to submit my post for this month's quirky cupcake entry with Cloves as the theme.

When i first recieved the theme ingredient for this round, i was delighted. Cloves = spices and oh! how i adore spices. However this delight to slight dumbfoundness when i purchased a packet of cloves from the chinese spice section of my the local supermart. It was pungent and reeked of a certain familiarity. OH YESH! the lovely pineapple tarts baked by my aunt during the chinese new year periods; everything was good about tt EXCEPT for the little clove tt pierced the flaky pastry off the top. Often i wld find myself digging out this little hideous piece of treasure only to find tt that one little monster had managed to infuse its overwhelming flavor into the surrounding pastry. Wasn't too good in my impression.

I pondered hard over how i cld use this ingredient in a cupcake and yet not allow the flavor to overwhelm or intimidate the taster. Hence I stumbled upon the idea of steeping fresh pears in a mixture of sugar syrup, a tinge of rum, cloves and cinammon. Inspired by the making of peach snapps, i was determined tt this wld work. Spiced pear was the way to go.

Hence about 2 weeks back, i gathered my ingredients, cut up fresh bartley pears, cooked up a nice sugar syrup, and prepare my lovely mixture of raw cloves and cinammon sticks. Putting it into a heatproof glass jar, i mixed the sugar syrup, rum, cloves, cinammon and pears together, tightened the lid and gave it a good shake. After which i put it in a simmering water bath for 40mins to allow the flavor to seep into the pears. tt seemed to go down pretty well, the pears sooned turned light brown as it soaked in the goodness of all tt flavor. After cooling, i capped the jars and retire it to a cool part of the kitchen to lay until i was ready to make my cupcakes.
The recipe i used was a rather simple one adapted from 500 Cupcakes. In this recipe, no butter is needed. Sour cream is used to maintain the moisture within the finished cupcake. and tt indeed worked out beautifully. After the taste test, my tongue was tingly and a litle numb from all the spices used. But tts what it counts for doesn't it?

Recipe for Spiced Sour Cream Poached Pear Cupcakes

95g Flour
3/4 tsp Baking Powder
85g Brown Sugar
90ml Sour Cream
1 Egg
A dash of cinnammon
3 tblspoon poached pear syrup
pear chunks (both attained from the poached pear syrup attained beforehand)

1. Sift all the dry ingredient in one bowl
2. Beat the Egg and Sour Cream together with an electric whisk
3. Add the Brown Sugar and beat till incorporated
4. Add the Pear Syrup
5. Add the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl and stir
6. Pour in the pear chunks and stir in.
7. Line the muffin Trays and bake them in a pre-heated oven at 175 degrees celsius for 20mins
8. Serve it with a poached pear, some pear syrup drizzled over the top and perhaps a dallop of cinammon ice-cream wld be good garnished with a mint leaf. DIG IN!

Recipe makes 8 Cupcakes