Bedazzled

I'm back from my mini vacation, but I'll tell you more about that in a later post. For now, here is another POM recipe that I made last week.

Michel-lee asked me how I got all this wonderful POM juice. Well, the POM Blogger, Diana, contacted me via email and asked if I'd like to sample some of their juice and I of course said YES! A few days later, I received a case of 8 oz. bottles! So exciting!

The first thing I did was pour it over crushed ice in a tall glass. Refreshing. With half a bottle I made Strawberry POM Smoothies, and the other half I made these yummy cupcakes. I quartered the original recipe, because I didn't want or need 24 cupcakes. I assumed it would make 6 cupcakes, but it made 7. Fine by me. I frosted my cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Frosting, leftover from the Rainbow Cupcakes and topped them with Jelly Bellys to resemble pomegranate arils. They turned out so cute!

These cupcakes were fudgey and INCREDIBLY MOIST. So moist that when I tried to frost them with room temperature frosting, the edges crumbled. They weren't quite as chocolaty as I would have liked, so if I ever decide to make these again, I'd up the amount of cocoa. They also had slightly fruity undertones, which were unexpected and nice. Another bonus, these cupcakes don't contain any eggs or butter, so they're vegan (minus the frosting, of course)- woo hoo!

To see others POM cupcakes, click here, here and here.

POM Chocolate Cupcakes from POM Wonderful

• 1/4 cup POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup water, heated to boiling
• 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F with rack placed in the center. Place a paper baking cup in regular sized muffin tin; set aside.

Combine the dry ingredients and whisk together. In a large measuring cup, combine pomegranate juice and boiling water. Add oil, vinegar and vanilla to the pomegranate juice mixture.

Add to the flour mixture all at once to the wet mixture and whisk to combine (batter will be lumpy). Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups (about 3/4 full).

Bake 20-24 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and free of crumbs. Mine took exactly 22 minutes. Let cool completely before topping with the frosting of your choice.

Makes a mini batch of 7 regular cupcakes.

Visit the POM website to find the recipes for pomegranate chocolate or vanilla cream cheese frosting.