Tea Infused Kringle Hearts
Hello!
Small Announcement: I’ve missed you all! I have to admit some sad circumstances have stopped my blogging for most of December and all of January. In December, my stepdad passed away suddenly and it affected me more than I could ever have imagined. I wanted to keep going everyday which I did to a certain point but creating recipes and blogging is such an involved process and I wasn’t up for it. I appreciate your patience during my little break and I’m back in time for the holiday of love!
I have mixed feeling about valentine’s day but I always try to be positive about it AND it’s an excuse to bake and cook things with hearts!
Have you ever tried Kringle?? I bought one from trader joe’s around the holidays and OMG SO GOOD! After I bought that one I couldn’t find them again :( I found out that you can order them online but they are a little pricey.
I was sure I could find a recipe on the internet, and I did! I used this recipe for these kringle hearts and will let you know the changes I made and how I added tea!
For those of you know kringle, you’re probably thinking that this isn’t the right shape! Well, you’re correct. I actually created the kringle then used a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut these out. It was messy but worth it for valentines day! The heart shape doesn’t change the taste in anyway :D
You can find the recipe I followed here !
If I am following a recipe and want to infuse tea into it, I will look for either a liquid portion to infuse or butter! In the past I have tried to use tea in place of the warm water for the yeast and for whatever reason they have always failed! This may have nothing to do with tea but to be safe I used the milk in this recipe.
The recipe calls for warm milk and so I heated the milk a bit and put 2 tablespoons of tea in the milk. I let it steep for until fragrant and when the milk was warm and not hot then I strained it and included it in the recipe.
Two notes about this, use more milk for the infusion that the recipe calls for and measure the final amount added to the recipe. You will lose some milk when you heat it and strain it. You can add less or more tea depending on how strong you want the tea flavor!
This recipe will not give you the thin kringle that you’re probably used to but it is still delicious. The filling is very sweet and is most of the flavor for this recipe. The topping which is a simple glaze makes this a great sweet treat!
A note about choosing a tea for this recipe. I would suggest choosing a black tea and if you are choosing a blended black to tea remember that the flavor you choose will be subtle in the bread part of this so make sure it is a blend you like!
For example, the tea I used in the blend was Amaretto Spice from The Jasmine Pearl Tea. This tea is a blend of black tea, cinnamon and amaretto flavoring. This combo was ideal because you have the extra cinnamon and almond flavor from the amaretto but nothing too overwhelming!
These turned out really delicious and although they aren’t exactly like the original Kringle they have that lovely flavor!
You can definitely create the shapes listed in the recipe but I will say that although the cookie cutter shape was a bit difficult to cut out since I did it after it was baked, it was nice to just give out heart shaped pieces!
I didn’t decide to do the hearts until after it was baked but I think you could probably cut them out before baking and have it turn out well too!
