I stumbled upon a bottle of rosewater in the supermarket the other day (not literally) and bought it on impulse with no idea what I was going to do with it. I scoured my collection of recipe books and found a recipe for pistachio and rosewater cupcakes in my book of 500 cupcakes and muffins.
I felt quite nervous baking with rosewater for the first time and was cautious with quantities as I didn’t want my cupcakes tasting like a bowl of pot pourri. The sponge was very light and the cream cheese and pistachio frosting was delicious but the delicate flowery taste of the rosewater was barely discernible. I’ll definitely be braver and add more next time.
To make these delicate pistachio and rosewater cupcakes you will need…
225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
4 eggs
1 tsp rosewater
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees and line a couple of cupcake tins with 18 cupcake cases.
Simply put all of the cupcake ingredients in a bowl and mix together with a handheld electric mixer until it’s smooth and pale.
Spoon the batter into the cupcake cases. They should be approx 2/3 full.
Bake for about 20 minutes until golden. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before moving onto a wire rack to cool completely.
For the icing you need…
200g cream cheese
175g icing sugar
2 tbsp rosewater
3 tbsp chopped pistachios
Use an electric whisk to mix together the icing sugar and cream cheese until smooth and creamy. I recommend sifting your icing sugar to minimise the chances of lumpy icing. Once it’s smooth stir in the rosewater and the chopped pistachios. Dollop a generous amount of icing onto your cooled cupcakes. The presence of the pistachio’s in the icing is a bit of a godsend…you’ve got no chance of creating a lump free, perfectly coiffured cupcake so just pile it on and be done with it! 🙂
