SAFFRON AND CARROT CUPCAKES WITH CARDAMOM AND PINE NUTS

A good cause is always worth to do something about, unfortunately there are so many of them and I wish I could do more. There’s that constant nagging in the back of my head “I should, I could, I must, I will” that sometimes drives me crazy because it makes me feel guilty. And guilt is not good, it can be quite paralysing I feel. Anyway, today I’m reacting and I am doing something for a good cause, Barbara from winosandfoodies, a person who I like a lot, is running the LiveSTRONG event for the second year now, last year it was a real success and I expect it to be so even this year. Here you can read all about it!

I love saffron but somehow I usually use it in baking around Christmas and then only use it in food for the rest of the year so I was happy to make these saffron and carrot cupcakes! You could add some topping but I rarely do that myself and then I wanted to keep these as healthy as possible. If possible.

SAFFRON AND CARROT CUPCAKES WITH CARDAMOM AND PINE NUTS
about 15 smallish ones

3 eggs
200 ml/ 0,85 cup sugar
200 g/ 7 oz carrots, peeled and grated finely
100 ml/ 0,42 cup rice oil but you can use another type of oil or even butter
1 tsp ground cardamom
0,5 g/ 0,018 saffron in powder
300 ml/ 1,25 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 tblsp pine nuts

- Whisk eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add carrots, oil, cardamom and saffron and mix really well.
- Sift flour and baking powder into the batter and stir. You can either add the pine nuts now or put them on top of the cupcakes.
- Spoon the batter (sounds slightly wrong, might there be another name for this?) into the cupcake forms and bake in a pre-heated oven (175°C/347°F) for 10-12 minutes but do the toothpick test to be sure.

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