Baking with Tea

After months of thinking about it, I finally made the vanilla cupcakes with lemon filling and earl grey frosting. I used a new vanilla cake recipe specifically designed for cupcakes. They looked like muffins when I pulled them out of the oven. I had never seen cupcakes dome that much. The cake was light and fluffy and the lemon filling piped in the middle made for a nice surprise.

As for the frosting, I was disappointed in the weak earl grey flavor. I first steeped the tea in some hot milk needed to thin the buttercream frosting making it spreadable. After tasting it and not tasting a strong tea flavor, I took the tea bag and steeped it in hot water for a few minutes. I added a 4 tablespoons of the tea to the frosting. I was afraid to add too much more liquid for fear of making the frosting too thin. In the end, I was still disappointed in the flavor, but I frosted the cupcakes anyways.

The next day I took them into work, where they were pretty much devoured. Everyone told me the frosting was the best part. It was just different than what I originally envisioned. I guess I am too hard on myself. It was really nice to hear that people would pay money for these cupcakes if they could.

Yesterday, I decided to pair chocolate with the earl grey tea. This combination I was much happier with. The tea enriched the chocolate flavor in the cake. It was not overwhelming or truly noticable, but I feel that if someone ate a piece of cake with the tea and one without, they would say the one with the tea had more chocolate flavor.

I decided to make the cake in bundt cake form and top it with cream cheese frosting and I drizzled over caramel. It was quite good and I hope to make it again soon.

Unfortunately, I failed to get any photos of the vanilla cupcakes, but here are some pics of the bundt cake.