Delicious Persian Yazdi Cupcakes

So I have decided that I should share the wonders of Persian cooking with all of you. Tonight I made Yazdi Cupcakes and was inspired to post the recipe (with pictures) for all of you to enjoy.

Yazd is a very ancient and historic city in Iran known for its architecture, silk weaving, and most importantly, it's pastries (just to give you a little background).

So here's what you will need:

4 eggs, separated (room temperature)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of whole milk plain yogurt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp of salt
1 Tbs of rosewater
2 cups of sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of rice flour
2 Tbs of ground pistachios

So now that you have all of your ingredients out on the counter and ready to be put to work, preheat your oven to 350º Fahrenheit.

Blend your egg yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl until it is a creamy texture (this should take about 5 minutes).

Beat your egg whites until they form peaks like cloud-mountains.

Put all the dry ingredients (salt, cardamom, baking powder, baking soda, and both kinds of lour) in a separate bowl so that you will be able to add it gradually to the egg yolk mixture in a minute.

Add your melted butter, yogurt, and rosewater to the egg yolk/sugar mixture until it's a of a homogeneous consistency. Then, gradually add your dry ingredients mixture into the batter as you mix (I added about 2 heaping spoons of the dry stuff at a time, then mixed until it was creamy then repeated until all the dry stuff was now in the wet stuff).

Remember those egg whites you beat? Now fold about one third of them into the mix before you fold the rest in (use a rubber spatula).

Now you are ready to pour the batter into the cupcake pan. You can either grease each cupcake mold or you can do what I did and use the papers lined with tinfoil. I used a pan of 12 normal-sized cupcake molds and the batter was the perfect amount to fill all 12 and not leave any left over. So you will have 12 good-sized cupcakes once you are done.

Now that you have all the batter poured, pinch the ground pistachios and sprinkle them over top of each cupcake. This is my favourite part of the whole cupcake experience.

So this is how they should look right now:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh62/tanhalen21/HaleysPicture027-3.jpg

Now place the cupcake pan in the center of your oven and bake for 20-35 minutes (mine took around 30, but set yours for 20 and just keep an eye on them). They should be golden-brown and a fork should come out clean.

When they are all done, just take them out of the oven and let them cool a while. This is how they will look:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh62/tanhalen21/HaleysPicture029.jpg

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh62/tanhalen21/HaleysPicture030.jpg

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh62/tanhalen21/HaleysPicture032.jpg

If you and your guests don't immediately eat them all, store them in an airtight container to keep them all moist and nummy.

Note: These cupcakes are delicious. Don't you dare omit the rose-water. If you have ever had a Persian dessert you know they pretty much all include rose-water. Some of them have an overly strong rose-water taste that some people who are not Persian do not appreciate, but in this particular dessert it is not over-powering at all, it's very subtle and adds an interesting dimension to the whole experience. Trust me on this one.

Enjoy, whities! Or as we say in Farsi, nush-e jahn!

The pictures were monstrous and I couldn't figure out how to resize so that they weren't tiny, so I added spoiler tags so it doesn't fuck up the whole thread.

That looks nummy! Now I need to find rosewater. I wonder if any regular supermarkets might have it in the 'look, we have stuff from other places' aisle.

But are they made from real Yezidi?

And is that halal?

But are they made from real Yezidi?

And is that halal?
Well, Yazd is a very Zoroastrian city, and I'm not Muslim, so I wouldn't really know. I don't see why it wouldn't be halal though.

Also, when you add an "i" on the end of a place in Farsi it changes it to an adjective. So when I say "Yazdi cupcakes" it just means that the cupcakes are from Yazd. Sorry I didn't explain that earlier... they aren't made out of people.

Soylent Pistachio Cupcakes?

No, I'll use rosewater!

That looks nummy! Now I need to find rosewater. I wonder if any regular supermarkets might have it in the 'look, we have stuff from other places' aisle.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure you can get it in the "ethnic" section of any franchise grocery store (Harris Teeter, Shaw's, Publix, what have you). If not, there are always azn and oriental stores around that have it, but you should be able to find it in a normal store.

Maybe a healthfood store if I can't find it. I think I saw it somewhere once. Sounds neat!

No frosting tho? Lemme guess, doesn't need it.

No frosting tho? Lemme guess, doesn't need it.
Definitely doesn't need it. I think the name "cupcake" kind of implies that it should have frosting but the difference between this and normal cupcakes is that normal cupcakes don't really have anything to them but a ton of sugar / what the consistency of the cake is like so it needs frosting to spice it up. The cardamom, rosewater, and pistachios add all the dimensions this cupcake needs. You'd pretty much ruin the taste by covering it up with a ton of sugar.

If you end up making this, let me know how it turns out!

May be a little while, but I will definitely try and let you know. They sound a bit more like muffins than cupcakes, but very cool!

They taste more like cupcakes though. Now I'm off to make a variety of piroshki!

Having had Persian food before, I'd have to say OMNOMNOMNOM KHEILI KHOSHMAZEH AST NOMNOM

Haha nice. And so true.

Man goshneh am!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, thanks, I'm going to make these and surprise my S.O. with them since I'm home recovering from surgery doing nothing. She makes me Persian and Indian food regularly, so I even have the rosewater ready to go in the fridge.

Let me know how they turn out or if you try anything differently.

Where do buy rosewater? I want to make some lahssi/lhassi/that indian yogurt drink.

Where do buy rosewater? I want to make some lahssi/lhassi/that indian yogurt drink.
I'm pretty sure any one of a bunch of indian markets on lower university has it. I'd call around.

Good point. I should peruse the sari district.

This is by far the best cupcake-type thing I have ever made/eaten. Props to you Tanhalen.

Glad you enjoyed it... just sharing the love!