Honey and earl grey teacakes
Guess what? It’s the FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of my blog.
!!!!!!
Holy crapballs, I can’t believe I’ve been posting on Off the spork for so long. I NEVER suspected that I would still be here five years later. That’s half a decade, man!
But five years and 554 posts later, here I am. Ooooh that’s a lot of time spent on this silly hobby.
I’d still blog even if I had zero readers, but it’s nice to know that there are people out there who are vaguely interested in what I have to say. I don’t know why sometimes (a lot of the time), but I’m happy you’re here! So to friends and family, to the other food bloggers, to the friends I’ve made, to the commentors, and to all the lurkers, a big thank you for reading. While I have no intention of stopping any time soon, who knows where I’ll be in five years time – possibly still tapping away, talking rubbish about food and posting photos of cats and sporks. Let’s hope, anyway! 🙂
And since it’s not a proper celebration without cake of some sort, I’ll leave you with a recipe for honey and earl grey teacakes. The original recipe from Ottolenghi doesn’t actually contain any tea, but since they’re called teacakes I wanted to incorporate tea into them. I did this by steeping tea leaves in warm milk and adding a teaspoon of powdered tea into the cake batter.
Despite incorporating the tea into the batter two ways, the tea flavour was quite subtle. It did add a certain flavour and fragrance that was hard to identify. But the honey flavour definitely comes through, with the tea giving a bit of floral aroma. They were a big hit at work, so I’m sure that I’ll try them again with slightly more tea.
They’re a very nice little cake and the lemon icing topped them off perfectly. If you don’t have mini bundt moulds, you could always just bake them in muffin/cupcake tins. Not quite as pretty, but it’ll do the job. Speaking of pretty – I must admit that the rose petals were solely for decoration and added nothing to the cakes. They’re so, so pretty though…
And finally – it’s my Bro’s birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday, Bro!
Mini cakes flavoured with honey and earl grey tea.
Ingredients
- 90ml full cream milk
- 1.5 teaspoons earl grey tea leaves
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 225g unsalted butter, softened
- 115g caster sugar
- 115g honey
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 245g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 heaped teaspoon earl grey tea leaves – extra
- 40ml lemon juice
- About 200g icing sugar, sifted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease 12 mini bundt tins. Set aside.
- Warm the milk and mix in the tea. Set aside to steep for five minutes. Strain out the tea leaves and mix the vinegar into the milk. Set aside for later.
- In an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and honey together until pale and fluffy.
- Gradually add the eggs, beating well until each addition is fully incorporated.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating on low speed to just incorporate.
- Add half the milk and mix to just incorporate.
- Repeat with the remaining flour and milk until it’s all added.
- Using a mortar and pestle, crush the extra teaspoon of tea leaves into a fine powder. Add the powder to the cake batter and mix until just combined.
- Spoon the mixture into the greased tins. Level out the mix and clean the edges of the tin if necessary.
- Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the cakes are cooked.
- Remove from the oven and leave in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out to a wire rack. Allow to cool completely.
- Make the icing by mixing together the lemon juice and icing sugar until it’s a thick, pourable icing. Spoon over the cakes and decorate with edible rose petals (if desired).
Notes
Recipe inspired and adapted from the Lavender and Honey teacake recipe in Ottolenghi the Cookbook
Fatboo
August 7, 2012 @ 10:31 am
Good gosh, that’s a very long run of blogging. Happy anniversary, Agnes!
I’ll have to say I really like your style of blogging, straight up, honest… you say it just the way it is. And your photos are great too!
Catherine
August 7, 2012 @ 11:06 am
Congrats on your 5 year stint! Your teacakes look like they came straight out of a magazine shoot, beautiful!
Kim
August 7, 2012 @ 11:26 am
Happy Blogoversary! wow, 5 years, that’s amazing!
I have to say I look forward to your weekly wrapups, sometimes for the bonus cat pictures, but mostly cause you seem to be dining at the most amazing places 😀
Iron Chef Shellie
August 7, 2012 @ 1:20 pm
Happy Bloggy Birthday!!
You know I’ll be making these just because they have earl grey in them.
Lovely photos, here’s to another 5 years!
Jackie
August 7, 2012 @ 6:19 pm
Congratulations and happy blogiversary Agnes!!
I do love your dainty little tea set!
leaf (the indolent cook)
August 7, 2012 @ 8:41 pm
Happy five years! That’s a pretty long time. And yay for celebrating with teacakes that incorporate actual tea!
Cakelets and Doilies
August 7, 2012 @ 11:43 pm
Congrats on your fifth anniversary. Keep up the good work. I tried your orange yogurt cake from your post on year 2010 and it was amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Hannah
August 8, 2012 @ 8:14 am
Happy anniversary BFF! I, for one, am mighty glad you’re such a blogging superstar. Even if you choose the worst tea to flavour these gorgeous cakes with.
xoxo
jfox
August 8, 2012 @ 8:18 pm
happy bloggy birthday agnes!
beautiful photos as usual too =)
Libby
August 9, 2012 @ 9:08 pm
Yay! Happy five years!
Love the photos – simply beautiful.
viv
August 11, 2012 @ 5:35 am
congrats! that’s a lonnng time!
carrian
August 12, 2012 @ 1:16 pm
Congrats!!! That is a long time and obviously worth it, but the looks of things. This is just beautiful and sounds delicious!
msihua
August 12, 2012 @ 3:14 pm
That looks simply divine and sublemony 😛 Gazzie won’t eat this as he doesn’t like Earl Grey (he’s odd)
Valynn
August 12, 2012 @ 4:41 pm
Happy 5 years! I was attracted to your lovely earl grey tea cakes 🙂 very nice blog you have here. thanks for sharing…
yumgoggle
August 12, 2012 @ 6:32 pm
They look really dainty and delicious! Congratulations…5 years is really an accomplishment. I look forward to more posts and awesome recipes.
Anyhoo, we have just recently launched a food photo submission site, http://www.yumgoggle.com/gallery/ that allows you to showcase all your great work and share it with all of our visitors. Your phenomenal photos have caught our attention. We’d be proud to have your work as part of our growing collection to continue to have a larger reach and further inspire all fellow food lovers out there! (sorry for the blatant shameless plug)!
Angie@Angie's Recipes
August 12, 2012 @ 9:27 pm
This is not only pretty but also very delectable. Love the clicks too.
Thanh
August 29, 2012 @ 7:40 am
Hooray for Off The Spork.
You do write a lot of rubbish….nestled amongst the gems too haha. Good work. Love these photos too.