Jasmine Cake

One of my favorite bloggers recently did a lemon cake with these gorgeous flowers on top. This cake came to mind when I got my new Sipsby box and was debating on what to make. I haven't made a cake in a while and I've been craving it!

I decided jasmine was the tea I needed to make the cake with because of it's lovely aroma but also was stuck on what kind of cake to make. I didn't want to make a cake with any powerful flavors that would overpower the jasmine. I looked up the lemon cake I mentioned earlier and saw that there were some easy substitutions I could do to make this jasmine cake work! You can check out her original recipe here (and all her other delicious recipes!) 

I was really excited about this recipe because Jasmine is such a delicate flavor and I think it would go well in the cake and the aroma would just be a lovely addition to it as well. I brewed the jasmine a little longer than suggested so that the flavor and aroma would be more potent in the cake since there will only be two tablespoons of it. 

I was also excited to add the crushed jasmine in because this is a fun way to add some texture. You should make sure that the leaves are thoroughly crushed so that it's almost like powder! 

The cakes ended up being very fluffy and delicious! I made two different shapes because I let a family member borrow one of my cake pans so I only had these two. It turned out well! 

You may have noticed that I didn't include a frosting recipe in this post and here's why. If you look at the original recipe linked above she uses an elderberry buttercream type frosting. I thought it would be good with the jasmine and it wasn't bad but it wasn't quite right. I would suggest creating a light flavored buttercream like maybe honey flavored to go with the jasmine cake.  

This cake + tea was SO GOOD. Such a wonderful combination to have after dinner as a little treat!. 

Tea Affogato!

I'll be honest, until recently I didn't know what affogato was :D I have been seeing it more and more as the weather had gotten hotter and finally looked it up. I thought, this can be done with tea and of course tea affogato was also a thing that people do so I wanted to give it a spin. 

Tea taste tests are fun because you can compare different flavors all next to each other. I decided to take the jasmine pearls, almond chai and sweet matcha from my sipsby box and pour them over one type of ice cream. 

It had been a long time since I made homemade ice cream and wanted to give it another try. You will see the recipe for cardamom ice cream at the bottom of this post and yay for people who don't eat dairy, it's made with cashew milk!

I chose the main flavor of the ice cream to be cardamom because for me, although cardamom has a strong taste it is more or less a neutral ice cream that I think would pair well with any of these teas. I the amount of cardamom I used in my recipe was a lot and the ice cream was very fragrant and lovely! 

A note about this ice cream. It's not a super creamy ice cream because it doesn't have cream. It's soft but also has more of an icy type texture. If you are able to find something like coconut cream or if you don't mind dairy any cream will work, adding cream to this recipe will make it more similar to ice cream you buy from the store. 

Despite the ice cream not being super creamy it's delicious and lower calorie and it worked great for affogato! I was originally concerned that because it wasn't creamy that when I poured the hot tea in it, it would totally melt but that wasn't the case. Yay!

In terms of the flavor pairings, here is how I ranked them: 

1. Almond chai
2. Matcha
3. Jasmine

The almond chai was my favorite because the nutty flavors of the chai paired so well with the cardamom. The chai was powerful enough to meet the flavor of the cardamom and it was definitely the one I finished first! The two flavors blended very well. 

The matcha used is called "sweet matcha" and is sweetened with fruit. The ice cream itself isn't super sweet so this combo definitely gives you the sweetest outcome :) 

The jasmine was 3rd but don't get it wrong, it was still yummy! The reason why this wasn't the top of my list is because generally the aroma of jasmine is so strong it isn't a favorite tea. I have started to enjoy jasmine a lot more but the aroma of the jasmine and the cardamom was too much for me. I will say that the jasmine tea is the combo where you could really taste the full flavor of the jasmine tea once mixed. The other two were a little more lost in the ice cream. 

Venetian Tiramisu Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodles are one of my favorite cookies and they are also a great cookie to infuse tea into! I've experimented before with making Chai Snickerdoodles and they were SO GOOD.

One of the teas I got in my sipsby box this month was a Venetian Tiramisu by Harney & Sons. This blend has a whole lot of goodness in it! The blend combines white tea, hojicha, cocoa, vanilla and brandy flavor. When I read the ingredients, I knew right away this would be a great tea for snickerdodles!

The method I love most for tea infusion in cookies is with the butter. I fee like when the butter is infused, you get the flavor coming through better than if you infuse milk or put the tea straight in the dough. 

When making snickerdoodles or any cookies, I love using an ice cream scoop for size and also so that it makes less of a mess! 

One of the main parts of the snickerdoodle is rolling the dough in cinnamon sugar! 

I also added a tiny bit of nutmeg and ground cloves the cinnamon and sugar because all those flavors pair so wonderfully!

I wanted to show this picture to demonstrate different ways of baking your cookie. Once you have the rolled ball on your cookie sheet, It will have a nice finished look if you flatten them a bit. I did different variations of flattening to see the difference. The top cookie is flattened less than the bottom. The top cookie came out softer than the bottom but the bottom cookie looks a bit prettier because the flattened shape almost looks a bit like a cloud. 

Even though the more flattened cookie came out really pretty (below), I'm not a fan of crunchy cookies! I love soft the best, BUT these cookies were perfect for dunking in my tea which is something I also love to do. 

Bangkok Chai Sugar Cubes

Chai Sugar.

Have you ever seen fancy sugar cubes?! Different flavors and shapes? I've been sent some and I've also seen them sold at a bunch of places. It's a simple way to make tea time fancier!

After researching how they're made, I decided that the Bangkok chai I got in my sipsby box would be perfect because it's not your typical chai blend! This chai blend from Kleff tea has Black tea, cinnamon bark, ginger root, cardamom pods, lemon grass, dried coconut in it!

In my recipe I mention using up to one tablespoon of tea. You may need less than this but definitely not more than this! I didn't actually measure the amount I used completely but it wasn't a lot. What I did was added a tiny amount of tea then I would mix, mix, mix and see how much more I needed. I read somewhere that it should be like damp sand, not wet sand and I think that is a great way to think about it!

Probably the most important note, MAKE SURE YOUR TEA IS COOL. If your tea is hot, it will melt the sugar and all you will have is sweetened tea! I crushed up some of the chai and put it in the sugar as well to give it a fun look but this is not required!

I used this mini donut tray that I have for baking but you can use anything! These are quite large for a sugar cube so I would suggest finding a small candy mold if you can. 

The best tool that I found for packing these is my hand! Get your fingers a little sugary so that you can really put pressure on the sugar and pack it in!

I put my mold near my heater to speed up the drying process but you don't have to! Smaller molds will definitely be ready quicker. 

These are super cute and fragrant! I think they would be a great gift as well :) 

Chai Cookie Sandwiches with Cinnamon Buttercream Filling

Oh my Chai. 

Soooooo, I know those butter cookies with the heart cutouts and jelly centers are a popular choice on valentine's day but I decided to go a different route...chai! I posted these cookies on my instagram on 2/14 without the recipe because I mentioned how it was "selfish" baking aka I didn't take a lot of photos and I didn't write the recipe. I made a batch of these to give out to my family, friends and coworkers on valentine's day. After asking on instagram if people would be interested in the recipe, all the YES PLEASE comments convinced me to write it up!

Something to note about cutting shapes with this dough, it's not easy. There is a high butter content in this dough so it's very soft. I used flour on the rolling pin, work surface and the dough itself to make rolling this dough out a little easier. Even with the flour, you have to be very careful when working with this dough so that it doesn't break! If you want to avoid the hassle, I would suggest balling up small amounts of dough and gently flatening them (not all the way) to make the two halves of the sandwich! 

In terms of your choice of chai, it's up to you. Remember that when you infuse tea in butter It really gets the flavor of whatever tea you're working with! For these I used a chai I had which is a white chocolate pumpkin chai, the pumpkin flavor came through well. If you need a reminder on how to infuse the butter with tea, it's very simple! Melt the butter in a pan, once it's melted take it off the stove and place your tea in the butter. I like to keep the tea in the butter until it's fragrant! Strain your tea and then let the butter solidify, I find it useful to put in the freezer to make the process faster. 

Don't throw away your tea leaves after you strain the butter! What I did to get this fun texture is took some of the leaves, chopped them up fine and threw them in the dough. Be careful to take out any hard chunks like cardamom, pepper etc. This is totally optional but I thought it added a pretty design to the cookies!

These are the heart shaped cookies I made on valentine's day, very festive! Making the heart shapes was definitely easier than making the teapot shapes!

Just for reference, in one of these batches I used bread flour because it was all I had and all I did differently was use 2 egg yolks instead of one egg, the cookies were just as good and soft :) 

Did I mention that the best part about these cookies is how soft they are?? It's very easy to take a bite out of them! No crunching here!

I wasn't specific about the filling because everyone has their own preferences. I beat the butter then gradually added cinnamon and powdered sugar until it was stiff enough to stay but not runny when spreading. If you get to a point where you overdid the sugar and it's too stiff, add a tiny bit of milk of your choice to loosen it up. 

I was a little lazy with the designs, I had on hand these store bought frosting that come in an easy squeeze bag and used that to make the swirls on both sets of cookies :) 

Yaupon Infused Cinnamon Rolls!

Tea Rolls.

So as you might have noticed, I don't do a lot of bread type baking. There's a simple reason for that, I'm not very good at it!! I one time made a braided pesto loaf and it was really good but all other attempts at bread have been failures. 

I really wanted to infuse the yaupon I had into bread because I think it has a great flavor for bread. With Valentine's day being tomorrow I thought I would try a fun heart shaped bread. Essentially, I brewed the tea and let it cool down slightly until it was warm and used the warm tea as the base to put the yeast in!

Enter the idea for cinnamon rolls! I modified a recipe from Paula Deen that seemed simple upon searching with tea and also slightly different ingredients. 

One thing that I've often gotten wrong with bread is the rising of the dough. This is probably an issue with the yeast but I was never really sure what I was doing wrong. I knew this would be different because at every step, the dough was looking and feeling the way it should!

I cut the dough into regular slices and used some of those but to make the heart I just unrolled one side and pinches the bottom to make the point. 

I think the next time I do this, I'll put something in the little space of the heart to keep the shape better. 

FINALLY! These came out well and they tasted pretty good! I would mention that I feel as though I didn't put enough filling in the middle and would be more generous the next time I make these!

These cute harry potter pusheen toppers are made by the lovely Ali from paperlypress. I thought they were such a cute addition to the rolls. Check her out for all your party supplies needs!

I didn't include the glaze in the recipe but it's just a mixture of powdered sugar and almond milk until I got a good consistency! 

Blood Orange Smoothie Madeleines

New and improved! 

A while ago I saw a recipe for madeleines from one of my favorite food bloggers, A cozy Kitchen. I worked from this recipe to create madeleines that were tea infused but they were a bit of a mess, especially since I didn't have the proper pan!

I received some blood orange smoothie tea from The Tea Spot in my recent Sipsby box and knew that was the best tea to use! This blend has red rooibos tea, orange peel, hibiscus, rosehips, safflowers, rose petals, natural orange & vanilla flavors. 

In A Cozy Kitchen's recipe she uses "browned butter" which you can read a bit more about in her post. Instead, I used the normal infusing method of melting the butter and throwing the tea in here. You want to add the melted butter to your batter before it congeals!

One of the tweaks I made was to add the zest of lemon to the recipe as well. I think lemon paired well with the other ingredients like rosehip and hibiscous. 

You do want to let the batter cool slightly before putting it into a piping bag! If you use a bag that's fine but you can also just use a ziploc bag with the tip cut off. This makes it easier to fill the molds on the pan. One lesson I learned: even if you have a non stick pan, use either butter or flour or both on the pan before putting the batter in. 

My pan was non stick but it was a bit difficult to get the madeleines out without breaking them! 

I was really excited about how they turned out! Nice and plump! Remember to touch the madeleines to see if they spring back a bit. You do want them to get a bit golden but not too much so you don't burn the bottoms! 

It's my personal opionion that these taste best warm!

Glaze is totally optional but I wanted to try it and it helped cover up some patches from some of the madeleines I butchered :) I made an orange glaze by simply mixing fresh orange juice and confectioner's sugar! 

OMG. SO. GOOD. If you don't like orange, stay awayyyy! My mom actually called me to tell me how good these were. 

100% will be making again! 

Matcha Pumpkin Pie

Green Pie.

UPDATED NOTES: I baked this recipe again recently and one way to stop it from cracking it seems is to crack the oven in the last 15 minutes to allow for the pie to slowly cool. It turned out great! If you do this, make sure to keep an eye on your pie!

I'm in full fall mode. I'm already thinking about the leaves changing, what costume to wear for Halloween and going to the pumpkin patch! This means that I'm also brainstorming about all the fall recipes! I want to start baking a bunch of pies and naturally I decided to start with pumpkin.  

This pumpkin pie has 2 twists. First, there isn't a regular crust! The crust is made from crushed up biscoff cookies and held together with melted butter...mmmm. 

The second twist is, AH it's green! This is kinda perfect for Halloween too don't ya think?! So why is a pumpkin pie green you might ask? Matcha matcha matcha!!! I recently restocked my matchaeologist matcha with their culinary grade Midori (*Affiliate link*). I got a huge tin so that I can bake all fall and winter.  

I love the taste of matcha and I think it goes well in a lot of things but I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how this would come out. Pumpkin is a strong flavor and is pumpkin pie really a pumpkin pie if it isn't that beautiful deep orange color? Oh well, this is a tea blog and we will bake with tea! 

I figured if all else fails, the biscoff crust would totally save the entire pie because they are so incredibly delicious! A quick note about the crust, I don't have a food processor currently so I crushed them up by hand and they were a little chunky. If you have a food processor I would use that so that they can get crushed well. That will make it easier for the butter to hold them together!

This pie has the same texture and consistency as pumpkin pie but it's green! As far as flavor, it is true to the spices you taste in a pumpkin pie but the flavor of matcha is definitely present! 

You can also control how green the pie gets. What I did was mix the condensed milk and pumpkin together and then added the tablespoons of matcha one at a time. One table spoon of matcha still makes the pie green but not as green as it is here. I hadn't added the eggs yet at this point you can also taste the pie to see if there is enough matcha flavor in it yet. 

Something I learned about baking time: Make sure that the pie is set all the way through! When the top of the pie set and there was no wiggling left I thought this was done. I'm not sure if the matcha had anything to do with it but I think there was a false sense of the pie being done so make sure to use a toothpick and check the middle of the pie as well.  

I think the matcha adds a nice rich and bold flavor to the pumpkin that will make a great addition to a fall party! 

Green Tea Passion Fruit Cupcakes W/ Ginger Buttecream Icing

Spicy Frosting.

I had a bunch of these pique tea packets left and they were so fun to work with, I decided to try another recipe! Last time I made this cocktail with them. I knew this tea would be great in a cupcake, all I had to decide what kind of frosting to create with it!

I know what ginger is a fun flavor with green tea and I thought, ginger buttercream? Why not?! I'm not blogging to be boring, I want to be adventurous!

All you have to do is mix the pique tea crystals with the milk in the recipe. I encourage you to use whatever amount you think is best but I honestly like to have a strong flavor so I used 4 packets in the 1 1/4 cup of milk! Do this step first before starting the recipe and place your tea infused milk into the fridge until it's time to add it to the batter. You don't need to heat your milk, but you can if you'd like!

I tried  a little experiment using mini cup cake papers but honestly I wouldn't do it again. Use full cupcake liners, you'll make less than is what is shown here but they will have a better shape.  

This tea has fragrance has such a wonderful and it's apparent in both the batter and when they're baked!

You may have seen the "spicy frosting" heading at the start of this post. I won't lie to you, with 2 tablespoons, this frosting had a KICK. If you want the ginger flavor with less of the kick I would mix everything together and gradually add in ginger to your taste. 

But let me tell you something about this spicy frosting...IT IS AMAZING. I thought it would be a bit strange but I really liked the spiciness contrasted by the sweet cupcake and the flavor of green tea! 

Yes, cupcakes were harmed ...I mean eaten...in this process!

Another note about the actual cupcake. These are THICK. If you want them to be a little less thick you can add a tiny bit more milk, try a few additional teaspoons. I actually loved how thick they are because they are a perfect for pairing with tea! I wanted to add this note though because not everyone likes cupcakes to be this way. 

As always, I suggest that you enjoy these cupcakes with tea :) 

You can check out Pique Tea here and see all their teas! These last a while because there are a bunch of packets in one box and I think theyre great for on the go tea without sacrificing the flavor! 

Homemade Matcha Sprinkles

Tea Sprinkles.

One of my favorite food bloggers is Adrianna from A Cozy Kitchen and the other day she posted a recipe for homemade sprinkles! She made them these beautiful  colors and I got to excited at how simple the recipe was so I decided to make my own! 

When I look at a recipe that I want to incorporate tea into I look for butter, milk or water to infuse the tea into. This recipe only has a few tablespoons of water so I decided to use tea in powder form, aka MATCHA! wooohooo!

I used Adrianna's recipe as inspiration but cut it down quite a bit. It still made a lot of sprinkles!

I also refrigerated them overnight but I'm sure letting them set for several hours will be ok as well. I used Adrianna's advice and used a wilton #2 tip. The tip is small so the sprinkles are the perfect size but it's VERY tiring to pipe it all out!

I know that white chocolate and matcha is the common pairing but I honestly don't like white chocolate very much! I made this fudge frosting for a roasted blueberry cake and the matcha tasted SO GOOD !

Depending on what your piping skills are like, you could make all sorts of shapes with this mixture! 

Now, a word about the matcha usage. I used Matchaeologist (warning: affiliate link!) I used two tablespoons in the mixture and that gives them a very STRONG matcha flavor. If you want something more subtle use less and the color will also be lighter green. 

These are very elegant sprinkles that can be used for fun or a great gift!