So I recently caved and, along with like, every single food blog (and flickr user!), got a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (which really could be called Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The Blogosphere). I even bought it at my local lefty bookstore (Modern Times).

Never content to use a recipe right out of a book (because I'm better than you), I decided to tweak their basic vanilla cupcake recipe, to create a pretty cupcake that looked (a little) like the one on the cover, but with something extra.

The difference was cardamom.

Cardamom is a superb dessert spice, and its creamy, sweet high note gives my baking a much needed boost of elegance. Cardamom alone, however, can be a little cloying and reedy (like a single piccolo player wheezing the melody line all by herself).

I rooted around the kitchen for something to balance it. Cloves might have been good, but my cloves had been hanging out near the coriander seeds their whole lives, and had gotten that "don't even think about using me in anything other than a curry" smell.

I ended up steeping the cardamom pods with tangerine skins in the soymilk called for in the recipe and then proceeded according to the book (omitting the vanilla).

And thus, Tangerine-Cardamom Cupcakes with Rose Icing and Pistachios were born.

The cupcakes turned out great. They're moist, they're sweet, and they're spicy. The rose in the icing is noticeable but not overpowering. My only complaint is that the pistachios are a bit underwhelming, though undeniably pretty. Perhaps I should have made them into a praline first.