Thai Tea Cupcakes

These cupcakes were suggested by Gibbs!  I love Thai tea, though it is one of those things that I don’t indulge in very often due to the high-fat cream or creamy condensed milk used.  However, baking and sweet are another story!  Both of those things that I avoid in my beverages sound like they would make amazing additions to a cupcake!  For the Thai tea, try to find whole-leaf tea, not the instant kind.  I searched and searched for whole-leaf, and only found tea bags (better than instant).  Brew it until it’s nice and dark, and you can even add in a piece or two of star anise to the tea as it’s steeping to give it a richer, deeper flavor.

Read Full Post »

Earl Grey Cupcakes with Lemon and Honey Buttercream

These little beauties have been on my mind for quite a while.  They would be the perfect addition to any tea party or just a nice snack on a Sunday afternoon.  The earl grey did not come through as strongly as I had hoped, but I was delighted with the frosting!  The honey added another sweet dimension that is usually not found in a frosting; it was a more complex flavor.

Read Full Post »

Chai. Chai? Chai! Cupcakes

Cha-Cha-Chainges! Um. I'm sorry for the Bowie puns, especially since Bowie isn't really indicated by chai cupcakes.

Yeah, I don’t know about the title.  It seemed like a good idea at 6:30, when I started writing this morning.

What I do know is that one of my regular accomplices and I were speculating about making cardamom cupcakes, and decided to make Chai cupcakes.  I am an unrepentant masala chai snob; that is: I make my own from scratch, using CTC leave.

What are CTC leaves, you say?

Read Full Post »

Hibiscus Lime Cupcakes (or, an essay on the process of making hibiscus lime cupcakes)

A Successful Experiment!

Here is yet another experiment, but one that required a little more thought than my last.  Research on hibiscus cupcakes has turned up one unhelpful recipe (I feel like adding a cup of tea and cutting the milk does a disservice to the chemistry of the cupcake), and numerous instructions on how to make buttercream hibiscus flowers, which I don’t really care about; I don’t really want to have my cupcakes look like a plastic lei at the neighborhood barbecue.

So, I adapted existing recipes to my needs.  I decided going the green tea/matcha route of grinding up the hibiscus flowers wouldn’t be particularly effective, nor would allow the cupcakes to get the rich and ridiculous color that hibiscus can impart.  Instead of using granulated sugar, we used a syrup to sweeten the cupcakes.  Making syrup sounds, I think, far more involved and fancy than it is.

Fanciness is to be had, after the jump:

Read Full Post »

Matcha Green Tea Cupcakes

A few months ago, my family and I wandered into a bakery and they had green tea cake squares out to sample.  I loved the color.  I loved the texture.  I loved the taste.  So, now I made my own version!  Enjoy :)

Read Full Post »