It was a gorgeous sunny day with blue skies and puffs of white clouds last week Thursday.  On that morning I had already gone on my walk, already spent time in my garden, and already prepared lunch for the family, and still had time on my hands, so I decided to bake.  With such a beautiful day in front of me, a spring inspired cupcake seemed very appealing.

Any dessert with candid ginger tastes awesome!

This recipe from marthastewart.com for Rose and Ginger cupcakes on marthastewart.com looked like a light and springy cupcake to try.  I also LOVE anything sweet with ginger!  It’s funny, my daughter Anjali helped me bake these when she was taking a break from online class and laughed when I told her I wanted to make this recipe 😀 “Mom, you love anything with ginger and roses, I’m not surprised you want to make this one 😀🌹.”

Rose essence and candied ginger a perfect pairing

This rose and ginger cupcake recipe is your standard cake recipe, with the addition of ginger powder and candied ginger.  The rose flavor comes more in the form of the glaze which is flavored with rose water. But I did modify the recipe a bit as the batter didn’t have much of any flavor. The ginger powder doesn’t partake its aroma or spiciness so I added vanilla and 1/2 tsp of rose essence to the batter.  I also thought the small amount of candied ginger – just 2 tbsp was so little for 24 cupcakes. So  I upped the quantity to 1/4 cup and believe me its awesome in the cupcake!  Now every cupcake has enough candied ginger to give it a zing of gingery spiciness.

All natural food coloring to the rescue

Another modification I made is in the glaze. I didn’t want to use pink gelatin for the coloring so Anjali and I decided to experiment with natural pink colors from what we had in our refrigerator.  As you can expect the go-to natural food color is beets, but we didn’t have that so we experimented with raspberries.  We mashed the raspberries and added it to the glaze and it turned the glaze a beautiful pale pink color!  Albeit you do get the raspberries seeds in the glaze, but if you’re okay with that, then raspberries work great for that natural pink colored glaze.

Decorating is half the fun!

Decorate the cupcakes with little miniature roses  for a natural looking decoration. It may not look as professional as the original recipe, but it looks pretty gorgeous to me!

Don’t have roses? Use the fresh raspberries and candied ginger and these cupcakes look just as spectacular!

Cake is delicious on its own too!

Personally I love this cake just as is without the glaze as I found the glaze to be very sweet. The cupcake on the other hand is outstanding!  It’s soft and fluffy and you get this candied ginger in every bite along with a delicate hint of rose essence. For sophisticated and delicious cupcakes give this recipe a try!

Rose and Ginger Cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes
Rose and Ginger cupcakes on marthastewart.com
with a few modifications

Ingredients For the Cupcakes