Dress up Holiday Desserts with Pomegranates

Company came for supper on Friday night, and for dessert we had Orange Cake with a spiced red wine and citrus syrup. This tasty, easy cake is also simple and plain, and we wanted to dress it up a bit. All it took was a bit of powdered sugar and a pomegranate.

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• Use pomegranate arils (the jeweled seeds) to dress up a cake or dessert plate with scarlet color. We clustered a few on top of each cake and sprinkled them around the edges.

• To learn how to open a pomegranate easily and without mess, check out this pomegranate spotlight post, and see this post for tips on picking out a sweet pom.

• Also, to dust a cake with powdered sugar, put a couple tablespoons in a small sieve or mesh strainer. Tap lightly over the cake to dust.

This took all of five minutes to do and is a very foolproof way to dress up a dessert. I am too imprecise and in a hurry, usually, to do fancy cake decorating, but you don't need icing or schwag to make a plain, easy cake look pretty.