Passport & Plate - Cherry Blossom Cupcakes

kellieholway — Thu, 5 Mar 2015 12:43:39 GMT

Ingredients
for cupcakes:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond or sakura extract
1-2 tsp juice from maraschino cherries jar (optional)
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
cherry buttercream icing (see recipe below)
cherry blossom shaped marshmallows, or chopped maraschino or dried cherries

for cherry buttercream icing

1/2 cup butter, softened
11/2 to 2 cups powdered sugar
a dash of salt
11/2 tsp sakura, almond, or cherry extract
1-2 tablespoons milk
pink food coloring

How to prepare this recipe
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter cupcake tins or line with cupcake liners.
Stir baking powder and salt into flour.

In another bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Add the almond extract and cherry juice (if using).

Add the flour mixture and milk alternately, starting and ending with one the flour. Stir just until the flour is incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 15-25 minutes, depending on the size of your cupcakes.

Beat butter and powdered sugar together with an electric mixer until the color of the mixture lightens slightly. Add cherry or almond extract, salt, and 1 tbsp milk and beat until light and smooth.
If the icing is too stiff, add remaining milk.
Tint half of the icing with pink food coloring, and decorate cupcakes in pink and white,
topped with a marshmallow or chopped cherries.

The story behind this recipe
It's almost hanami, cherry blossom viewing season, in Japan y'all!

That means:
sitting under the pink arches with your friends contemplating the meaning of life
lots of eating, sake drinking, and more eating
indulgent photo taking
finding previously unseen beauty in nature
poetry/ haiku readings

But, for me, one of the best things about the hanami season in Japan is eating cherry blossom (sakura) flavoured sweets. A delicate, yet delicious flavour, which in Japan only comes out once a year.

For my hanami party, I made these lovely little cupcakes, which were enjoyed by one and all.

Cherry blossom parties are fun, an I encourage you to have your own this year! Gather your friends, sit under the trees, and have a picnic with all the s's: sushi, sandwiches, sweets, and sake. You might even try your hand at composing a poem.

Along with fun, cherry blossoms symbolize both the beginning of spring and renewal as well as a kind of beauty in sadness. We leave behind the past and contemplate how the past year was filled with both joy and sorrow.

I will leave you with a poem of my own:

Under the Blossoms

Sitting under a sakura tree
I wish I had my sketch book
And yet I know I couldn’t possibly attempt
To give an accurate sense of its beauty
Because I don’t even understand the lines on the petals
Or the reason that one flower is open, one shut tight
Let alone the mystery of why it blooms for just a short while.

I wish you were here
And though I don’t know who you are
I know that you are here
In a little kid’s voice “sakura!”
And in the breeze blowing from the sea where I just was walking
And in the tears welling up
In my hopeful, impatient eyes
Which look for you in Japan
And in people who don’t see me.
You do exist like the blossom fickly blooming above my head.

A child goes by on a noisy bike with a bell
I hear with an ear accustomed to not understanding
But just like me
Numerous people sake in hand
Sit poised on a blankets
Under their own sakura trees

Sweetness in Life, Under the Blossoms

Passport & Plate - Cherry Blossom Cupcakes