Tea Pop Sampler!

Creamy Pops. 

In my last Sips By box I received two different chai teas. I was so excited because the flavors in "chai" are amazing. I love the combination of spices used. I was really excited because these chais were slightly different and it gave me an idea...a sampler! 

I had a chai blend from Cozy Leaf and also another tea blend called white chocolate samoa that I added to the sampler. 

Here are the 4 teas I used. I used 2 teaspoons of each tea. I think if you use a tablespoon the pops will taste even better!

1. Cozy Leaf Country Chai Spice

2. Zhi Tea Cacai Chai

3. Rishi Masala Chai

4. The Necessiteas White Chocolate Samoa

Although chais tend to have similar characteristics, each of the 3 chais I used have something that stands out. The Zhi Tea has Peruvian cacao nibs, the masala has black pepper that is very prevalent in the flavor and the cozy leaf has anise! 

I added in the White chocolate samoa because it has coconut, caramel, and chocolate which I think can compliment the other 3 chai teas well without straying too much from the classic chai flavor. 

With these simple popsicles, feel free to add toppings or things to dip them in. I added coconut to some and also melted some salted dark chocolate to dip the popsicles in!

The milk in these blends gives the popsicles a creamy and more substantial taste than if it was the brewed tea alone. I think you easily substitute cow's milk here for any other type of milk you like. 

Each of these popsibles had their own flavor. As shown in the photos above, they all had different colors. I liked them each individually for different reasons but I think the Rishi tea was my favorite because of it's spicy flavor. It was a bit heavier than the other popsicles and I loved it! 

I had 8 mold and the tea was enough to fill 2 molds. I have to say that covering the popsicles in coconut flakes was my favorite. The white chocolate samoas had coconut in them but still taste great with a boost of coconut. 

Next up...boozy popsicles! What are your favorite types of popsicles?!

Bangkok Popsicles

Bang! 

May's Sips by box has some delicious tea in it! It's been super hot since I got home from my trip to Italy and I thought that tea popsicles were the perfect solution! The Bangkok tea blend from Harney & Son's that was in my box has green tea, coconut, ginger and vanilla. Um.....can you say YUM or what?! These are all light, summer time flavors in my opinion that would go perfect as a popsicle. 

Part of me wanted to just brew this tea, let it cool and then freeze them because it has so many wonderful flavors. BUT, I decided that I needed to add one ingredient to spice things up.   

I chose cardamom because it's not only fragrant but also very flavorful. I used to eat these sugar candies that had whole cardamom seeds in them and they were one of my favorite things to have with tea! Even though cardamom is potent I think it goes well with a lot of different flavors. 

I've seen so many posts about ice cream that have fancy styled shots and I was on the hunt for popsicle sticks and metal molds. My local grocery store didn't have what I was looking for but something even better! These colorful popsicle molds are so cute AND do you see that straw? You can sip the melting popsicle so it doesn't run into your hand, it's awesome!

I let my tea brew for a bit longer than I said in the recipe and they were quite potent but I liked them. I wanted to make sure that they got a nice color because splitting the tea between all these mold would certainly weaken the flavor. 

These are great ice pops, they have a wonderful flavor and aren't heavy. The only thing I didn't like which I'll have to find a solution for is that the bottom of the mold and what turned out to be the top of the popsicle were much more flavorful than the rest of the popsicle. 

I've been enjoying these the past few nights and really like how light and refreshing they are. I didn't use very much honey but they still have sweetness to them to make them feel like dessert. 

Watch out for another ice cream/popsicle recipe coming very soon! Do you have a favorite tea pop?!

Peach Matcha Cake

Peachy Cake.

Are you sick of the matcha recipes yet? I don't think I ever will be! Something new I've come across is flavored matcha! The Matcha Reserve provided some peach matcha to experiment with. 

I was a little skeptical at first about flavored matcha. Matcha is known for it's health benefits so the idea of adding flavor worried me a bit. I was pleased to find out that the flavoring is natural and sugar free! What the flavoring did do was add a wonderful fragrance and taste.  

I used a very basic cake recipe here because I wanted the peach flavors to come through really well. I placed almonds on top of the heavy cream in the center and on top but that could easily be replaced with fresh fruit to pair with the peach flavor!

My parchment paper wasn't smooth around the edges to give the cake a little texture. If you want them perfectly round you can follow this tutorial on cutting the parchment paper or simple butter and then flour the pans, making sure to tap off excess flour. 

As you probably can tell I'm very fond of almonds. As mentioned before, I think fresh fruit would also go well in the middle. The cake was very tender and what the almonds do is give the cake a nice crunch. 

On top, I was more delicate with the almonds. I tried to sprinkle them gently and some ended up sticking up which I really liked the look of. This matcha is so good I sifted some extra powder on top of the cake. Not only does this give you an extra punch of matcha but also a lovely aroma of peach for the whole cake!

The heavy cream was not super binding but it did the job. It almost turned out like a matcha sandwich! 

What I really enjoyed about this flavored matcha was that the peach flavor wasn't overbearing. It lightened the taste of the matcha which is nice because matcha can often have a heavy flavor. Peach flavor is such a wonderful summer flavor and as summer approaches, you want this cake in your oven! 

The matcha reserve has 8 different flavors to choose from. You can find flavors from peppermint to blueberry! I think any of their flavors would taste great tn this cake! You can use code NAZANINMATCHA for 15% off your purchase on the matcha reserve website. 

Puerh Raspberry Jam

Tea Jam. 

I always get a lot of questions about how I choose my recipes. Sometimes it's a random guess or an experience I've had before but most of the time I look at the ingredients in the tea. One thing I love about the Sips by box is that it came with a card that describes the teas, their flavors and sometimes what they go well with!

The rain butter tea as notes of macadamia and hazelnuts and for some reason I thought that would pair well with raspberries! 

I had continually seen people making jam on The great British Baking Show and wanted to give it a try. My favorite fruit and jam flavor is raspberry. Jam is pretty simple to make so I decided to use the brewed pu'erh tea as the "water" that I add to the fruit. 

The result was delicious! This is not very sweet jam although you can make it sweeter by adding more sugar. I like how rich the flavor is. The tart raspberries and the tea make the perfect jam that is right in the middle on the sweet and savory scale. 

Mr. Tea Thoughts likes to put jam in his oatmeal and LOVED this flavor because it was still sweet enough to cut the oatmeal but not super sweet. 

Very simple recipe and one that you can make over and over to fill your summer with jam! 

Mini Tea Bundt Cakes

I like little bundts. 

Another installment of teas in my Sips by box! These were a special addition to my normal samples. I won't lie, I'm used to drinking and baking/cooking with loose leaf tea only. I'm sometimes a little snobby when it comes to loose leaf vs. tea bags BUT to each their own!  I would normally use the milk or butter to infuse the loose leaf tea but since the tea in the bags is already ground I decided on a cake that I could thrown all of the tea into!

I recently found mini bundt pans at marshalls and thought that they would be the perfect way to make a cake but have it be special in it's own way. 

I'm not a fan of licorice but the combination of these two flavors really have a wonderful fragrance which comes through wonderfully in the cake while it's baking and when it comes out of the oven. 

This tea was pretty well ground but if you open the tea bags and there are any large pieces make sure to crush them up so that you're not getting a lot of crunch factor in your cake. You want the tea to be there visually and for taste but not to physically chew it up. 

An important note for using these pans, you have to do something with them or the batter will stick. I've seen people use parchment paper but I opted to use my misto to spray with olive oil and then flour them. Make sure to knock off excess flour because it will stick to the cake. 

Most things I bake taste pretty good but they're not always "magazine ready." This is a perfect example lol. I filled my tins almost to the top because I wanted to get as much cake as I could. They turned out fin but they don't really have a flat bottom so if you care about that make sure you don't fill the tin too high. 

See the white on my cakes, that means I needed to knock off a little more flour. It didn't interfere with the flavor but here is a lesson! Especially if you're over concerned with how they look, make sure to have a thin layer of flour. You can however always cover it with glaze :) 

I made my glaze pretty thick but thin enough to drizzle. If it's too thin it won't solidify but this part is completely up to you. I put 2 cups of confectioner's sugar in my recipe but use as much as you want to get desired consistency. MAKE SURE YOUR BUNDTS ARE COOL BEFORE GLAZING!!! Or else it will melt into your cakes. 

These tasted fine the next day but oh my gosh they tasted SO GOOD warm. The cake is thick but soft and the tartness of the glaze goes so well with the licorice and cinnamon in the cake. 

I want to get all sorts of bundt pans and try these! Do you have a favorite bundt pan?! 

Matcha Swiss Roll With Almond Cream

Matcha Roll. 

Another matcha recipe, are you surprised ?! So, I've been hooked on The Great British Baking Show recently and it's been giving me all sorts of recipe inspiration. One of the first episodes they made a "swiss roll" which is essentially a cake rolled around delicious cream! We get these all the time from the Iranian bakery near my house and I've always referred to them as roulette. These have so many styles but the essential idea is the same! 

The trickiest part about this roll as I saw on the show and experienced when baking it, is getting it the right size, thickness and texture. On the show they referred to the roll as a "sponge." Well, I felt the pressure of the baking show when I made my first sponge because it was HORRIBLE! It didn't really rise and was not spongy at all. 

The second time I changed up my ingredients and added honey. I also used cake flour which I think helped a lot. I spread it a bit too thin but it was still soft and delicious! In my directions I note to spread it but not too thin so you can have a thicker roll :) It's really important to roll up the sponge while it's hot so it will roll easier when it's time to spread on the filling! 

If you remember I made almond cupcakes with matcha frosting recently and I LOVED the flavor combo. I decided to recreate that flavor combination in a different way. Not only did I add almond emulsion in the heavy cream but I decided to toast some almonds for the top. This gives the soft sponge some crunch! The almonds can also help cover up a not so great piping job :) 

Even though I spread mine thinner than I wanted to, it was wonderfully tender. It also rolled really well!

My advice:

• Make sure your batter is well beaten and mixed before adding in the flour. The green color of the batter should get lighter. 
• Make sure that you check your roll while it's in the oven. It will spring back slightly when it's ready. If you let it go too long it will be dry. This is especially important with a matcha flavored cake because the color isn't light so it's harder to tell when it's done. 

I used some lovely culinary matcha from Mizuba Tea Co. for the roll and it was delicious! Keep your eye out for one more recipe with this matcha that I think you will love! 

The best part about this combo is that the matcha flavor comes through really well. The cake and the heavy cream together are the perfect amount of sweetness. 

Keep your heavy cream cool! It will make everything easier :) 

Have you made matcha swiss roll? What is your favorite matcha flavored sweet?! 

Tiramisu Truffles

Unicorn Truffles. 

If you saw my post about the Sips by subscription box, know that I have a bunch of interesting teas to work with! Although truffles are pretty simple and classic, I couldn't resist using the Pinky Up Tiramisu blend to make truffles. With black tea, cocoa, white chocolate, cinnamon and a few coffee beans, how could I not make truffles?!

These take time to make due to refrigeration time but they are so so simple! What you end up with is a perfectly chocolate packed little ball. The tiramisu tea adds that black tea flavor and the cinnamon is an excellent addition to this classic dessert.  

Lesson Learned: Chop, chop chop that chocolate up! I'm not sure what I was thinking leaving it that large. smaller pieces will melt a lot easier and your mixing arm will thank you! 

Rolling: Even though the truffle mixture had been in the refrigerator for hours and had solidified, it melted FAST! I would suggest cooling whatever instrument you use to scoop out the balls to help slow the melting a little bit. 

When choosing your rolling topping, I think you should be a little adventurous! Cocoa is a very common coating but these truffles are hardcore chocolate flavored. Adding in a different type of coating gives them more depth in the flavor department.

As you can see I used some fun sprinkles to roll the majority of my truffles. These are of course from my favorite sprinkle shop, Tiny Kitchen Treats! She not only makes fun names for all of her sprinkles but they actually TASTE good. They taste real. A lot of sprinkles I've bought from the store have a strange flavor to them. 

The tiramisu tea was excellent in these truffles, it was almost like biting into a piece of tiramisu. Flavors were more dominated by chocolate but the notes of coffee were there. This blend has both black tea and coffee so it smells AMAZING and your truffles will hold that aroma as well. Make sure that when you're heating the cream with the tea that you let it get hot enough that the cream is actually brewing the tea or the entire addition of the tea is pointless.  

If you could roll your truffles in whatever flavor you wanted, what would it be?! 

Matcha Mint Chocolate Chip Ice cream

Matcha Mint. 

Y'all. Let me tell you about the dangerous thing I just made at home for the first time. MATCHA MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM !! I'm not sure if I've shared this with you but mint chocolate chip is my favorite ice cream of all time. One time, in my teens I read that Orlando Bloom also loves mint chocolate chip ice cream so basically, it's the best ice cream flavor. 

I found a recipe for it and made some tweaks based on what I love. For example I put in almost double the matcha, I didn't use an ice cream maker, brown instead of white sugar and I used more mint that what was called for. 

There are a lot of steps but nothing too complicated. A devilishly easy ice cream recipe that can easily be molded to have different flavors? I'm in big trouble! 

My favorite part is that instead of using chocolate chips, I melted chocolate and covered the pan so as I churned they broke up into smaller chunks/shavings. 

So excited to finally use this ice cream scoop! 

The flavor of the matcha is there but there are still all the lovely charactistics of the mint chocolate chip. The fresh mint has such a wonderful flavor that makes it taste very fresh!

One thing to note, I used a glass loaf pan to store my ice cream and it worked well but it didn't have a lid. After day 2 or 3 in the freezer, even with some foil over top it froze a little too much. I would suggest getting some kind of container with a lid! I think the ice cream tasted best on day one, why not make a batch and finish it that day?! :) 

What are you favorite ice cream flavors??! 

Almond Cupcakes with Matcha Buttercream

Buttery Matcha.

You all know how much I love matcha and It's so fun to bake with. I've been drooling over matcha pictures on instagram everyday and decided it was time to make matcha frosting. I know some people don't like frosting but it's my favorite part of any cake or cupcake!

I'll be honest, I don't have every baking tool in the book so sometimes things get a little messy. I finally upgraded with a simple ice cream scoop to help eliminate mess! I originally got it to make cookie dough placement easier (and future ice cream making?!) but found it to be very useful for this batter as well. I filled each liner up with about two scoops. Some liners were a little over 3/4 way full and those are the cupcakes that had a bit of a top. I don't mind this, it actually means more area for frosting! BUT if you're the type of person who likes to have very neat, not overflowing cupcakes I would suggest using a scoop and a half or one heaping scoop! After I had the desired amount in the liner I took a chopstick into the center of the batter and swirled it in circles. This helped the batter settle. 

Ah, matcha buttery frosting. YUM! I decided to use almond and matcha as a combination of flavors because I kept seeing this combo EVERYWHERE. Thinking about the heavy, full flavor of matcha and the fragrance of almond I wasn't sure if they would be good together but I as wrong! The almond flavor in this cupcake is very light and airy which goes so well with the heavy butter and matcha frosting. In my recipe, I talk about "pours" for the almond emulsion. My emulsion is very thick and comes out slowly so when I say pours I mean it literally. Each time I tipped the bottle over my bowl a drop came slowly out. I did it 3 times. You are welcome to do more or less based on how much you enjoy the fragrance and taste of almond!

Ok, so I originally wanted to do a frosting rose on top of the cupcakes. As you can see that didn't happen. I love watching cupcake and cookie decorating videos and I've been wanting to try this one method of making the rose. I thought I had the right tip but when I started piping got this short thin piece of frosting and decided to improvise. One small note, as I started piping I put too much frosting in the bag so my hands were gradually warming up the frosting. You can see in the photo below thinner and thicker lines. I put mine back in the fridge to cool it off before I continued.  

You're probably wondering about these pizza slices. My original plan was to create matcha frosting because the pastel green was perfect for spring. I then put one of these pizza sprinkles, yes they're sprinkles from Tiny Kitchen Treats, on top and I LOVED how it looked! Does an almond cupcake with matcha buttercream and a pizza sprinkle make sense? Who knows, but it sure looks cute! 

So what's the verdict? Matcha donuts are good. Matcha scones are better. Matcha buttercream is queen! 

As many of you may know, matcha is in powder form because it consists of the ground up leaves. This is said to increase the health benefits because you're ingesting the actual leaf instead of brewing it and throwing it away. In powder form, it is also much easier to incorporate into your cooking and baking! So these cupcakes a kinda healthy, right ? ;)

The almond cupcake recipe was adapted from this one

Puerh Donuts with Orange Glaze

Glazed Donuts.

I was brainstorming about what to make with this dark night orange spice puerh blend that Plum Deluxe sent me and a light bulb went off! DONUTS! I reworked my Mini Matcha Donut recipe to create larger donuts and added a glaze!

Spring is here and we've been having such beautiful weather, it's been making me crave donuts. Not sure why! These aren't traditional donuts that you would get at a bakery, they are baked and much smaller. Although I used a larger pan from michaels they are still relatively small for donuts. 

I chose an orange glaze to compliment the fruity aroma and taste of the puerh blend. The blend has orange peel, rose hips and hibiscus which I think all go together well with orange! Make sure you use an actual orange for the juice, not store bought juice!

Ah yes, the tea infused milk staple. I used 1 cup of milk to infuse but only use 2/3 cup in the recipe because during the heating process some of the milk is lost. 

I made two batches of these donuts to show you the different between "firm" and "spongy." The donuts on the left were the result of filling the molds about 3/4 way and baking for 8-9 minutes. The donuts on the right were filled almost to the brim and cooked for about the same time. They are both still very soft on the inside the ones on the left are just a bit firmer, which in a taste test I actually preferred!

A note on the glaze, as mentioned before, use less juice if you want a more solid glaze. I tried 2 TBSP and I just didn't like the consistency. I like how when I added one additional TBSP (to equal 3) that this is what happened when I dunked the donuts. When you let them sit they still harden but I think 3 TBSP made it easier to glaze. To each their own!

Puerh tea is so interesting and I found this to be a unique opportunity to create a fruity donut with a very flavorful tea. These donuts are definitely sweet but they are super fruity, specifically orange. I suggest making extra glaze for dipping :)