The pomegranate is a strange old bit of produce. It has dozens of beautiful jewel-like arils (the seeds, which are encased in pulp) inside a tough red skin. The white pith and membrane taste pretty awful, but the tiny amount of tart/sweet/tannin pulp from the arils make this fruit worth the effort required to eat it. My friends Richard and Ruth introduced me to the pomegranate last year, over a very relaxed Sunday breakfast. When I saw one at my local supermarket, I bought it without a thought to the ridiculous price ($3.98 each) or how I was going to use it.

The pomegranate has long been seen as a symbol of fertility and abundance, and Jewish households recite a special prayer over a pomegranate at Rosh Hashana:

"May it be Your will O Lord our God and the God of Our Fathers, that our good deeds will increase like the seeds of the pomegranate."

Slashfood has this to say about the pomegranate:

"In Judaism, the first book of the Torah argues that the forbidden fruit was not an apple, but a pomegranate. In other texts, pomegranates were one of the signals that the Hebrews had, indeed, reached the promised land. But best of all is the tradition in Islam. "According to the Quran, the gardens of paradise include pomegranates. It is important, tradition says, to eat every seed of a pomegranate because one can't be sure which aril came from paradise." And pomegranates protect the eater from envy and hatred. Sounds good! I vote that pomegranates be adopted as the totem fruit of bloggers. Anyone with me?"

B's squash team were playing at home on Monday night and it was their turn to provide supper, so I had a chance to try out a couple of new recipes and use my perfect pom. I ended up with coconut cakes with passionfruit butter filling, coconut frosting and pomegranate decoration. I had dreams of a generous swirl of frosting with a big dip in the middle, filled to the brim with pomegranate arils, but the frosting argued with me and won, so the arils ended up forming the petals of flowers.

Coconut Cake

• 125g butter at room temperature, chopped
• 1 1/4 cups caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup plain flour, sifted
• 1/2 cup self-raising flour, sifted
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda - sift in with flours
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup dessicated coconut

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Place cupcake cases in pans - I got 15 large and 12 small (not mini) cupcakes out of the batter.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla and beat well.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. Fold in the sifted flours and bicarb 1/3 at a time, adding the milk between flour additions (begin and end with the flours). Once combined, fold in coconut.
4. Two-thirds fill cases using your preferred method. Bake for 20 mins or until cooked when tested with a skewer. **20 mins is far too long for small cupcakes (standard Australian case size) - 14-16 mins should be plenty** Cool on wire rack before filling and frosting.

Coconut Frosting

• 125g (half a tub) cream cheese, softened
• 125g unsalted butter, softened (half a block in Australia & UK, 1 stick in US)
• 2 cups icing/confectioners sugar
• 3 tablespoons coconut cream (*not* coconut milk)
• 1 teaspoon dark rum (optional - I prefer Bundaberg Rum)
• 1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut (I used the same unsweeetened dessicated coconut as I used in the cakes and it was plenty sweet)

1. Beat together all ingredients except coconut until well combined, then stir in coconut.
2. Keep beating until a spreadable consistency is reached. You may need to add more icing sugar is it's too runny.

I used my filling tip and a disposable piping bag to fill the cupcakes with passionfruit butter (available from Coles supermarkets or your local fete/craft market). You could use lemon cutter/curd or even pineapple butter. Aim for tropical fruits and you'll get a great flavour combination. Spread on frosting, then place the pomegranate arils on top in a 5-petal daisy formation. I then used icing tubes (commercially available pre-made runny icing for writing etc) to add centres and stems to my flowers. While I was happy with the flavour of the icing, I think I'll go with a coconut buttercream next time. The cake texture was fairly dense but tasted wonderful and not too sweet. The sharpness of the passionfruit butter complemented the cake and frosting beautifully - very happy with that! These sweet little friends were well-received by B's squash team and the visiting players.