Bake It Seasonal: Date & Pistachio Cupcakes

I am now going to shatter any grand illusions you may have about how the seasonal fruit is chosen for Bake It Seasonal. Generally, the day before the last day of the month, Shirin emails me or I email her asking "Hey, what fruit are doing for Bake It Seasonal next month?"  And then the two of us separately scramble to Google what fruit is in season for the month. Well, welcome to the time of year when nothing is in season.

And that is how we settled on baking with dates for January. Sweet, delicious dates.

I really had no clue what to make with dates; absolutely nothing was jumping to mind. As I flipping trough the Betty Crocker Big Book of Cupcakes, I landed on the page bearing the recipe for Dried Cherry and Pistachio Cupcakes. And I was quickly subbing in dates for the cherries in my mind wondering if it would work. And it did!  A few other recipe tweaks and I had these amazing cupcakes!

A vanilla (with a hint of almond) cake dotted with chopped pistachios and chopped dates...

...and topped with a vanilla almond buttercream.

Delicious.

A few months ago, my friend Shirin of Diary of a Messy Kitchen and I were discussing the one day sale on peaches that Whole Foods was hosting. In the way conversations tend to evolve between people who blog, we decided it would be fun to start a monthly feature highlighting something we baked using a fruit that was in season. And with that, Bake It Seasonal was born.

Each month, we will bake something using that month's chosen fruit. The recipe can be original or taken from a book or website. The only rule is that the key ingredient should be that month's fruit. Then, we will each post what we made on the last day of the month.

Be sure to pop over to Shirin's blog {here} to see what her Bake It Seasonal creation was! If you joined in Bake It Seasonal this month, post a comment with a link to your delicious treat! For past Bake It Seasonal feature, click {here}

If you would like to join Bake It Seasonal, we would love to have you join in! There are no rules. Just bake something with the monthly fruit selection; the recipe can be made up or taken from somewhere (just give proper credit) and post it on your blog on the last day of the month. Send me an email at iwbadg@gmail.com if you would like to join in Baking It Seasonal.

The February "fruit" will be bananas.