Baking Challenge Week 34 - Carving - Cardamom Tea Cupcakes with Caramel Filling

Cardamom is my favorite spice, I know I've said that before.  So it's no surprise that when I was out of town and happened to wander into a Middle Eastern grocery to check for hard-to-get-here spices, I passed through the tea aisle and grabbed this off the shelf as soon as I saw it.  (Didn't hurt that it was $9 for 500g of loose tea.  That's a steal!)

I wanted to do a simple carved cupcake for this challenge, because, as I've said before, it's hard to feel motivated to do cakes when they'll spoil before my husband and I can eat them all.  Cupcakes are much easier to give away if staleness threatens!

Also, I've never carved cake before and didn't want to get in over my head.

I found an Earl Grey cupcake recipe and simply substituted my cardamom tea.  The cupcakes themselves came out beautifully, and were very easy to carve.

 I just pretended I was hulling some extremely large strawberries.

And of course, I ate the pieces I carved out.  The cake is positively scrumptious--I'm going to try this recipe with other teas in the future, I'm sure.

I had plans to make a caramel frosting I'd run across while looking for the cupcake recipe, and I tried it....and it's not frosting.  I won't link the recipe, but I followed it exactly, both proportions and procedure, and it's just not frosting.  It's a glaze, at best.  It would not thicken.

So instead of piping a nice dollop of frosting into my hulled cupcakes, I spooned the glaze in, and am waiting for it to harden enough to risk eating a cupcake without oozing everywhere.  Fingers crossed!

Cooking Challenge Week 19 - Five or Fewer Ingredients - Chai Frozen Yogurt

My third attempt at developing a recipe for something that I hope will be my favorite flavor of frozen treat ever.

The first two batches were last summer and early fall.  The first was waaaay too sweet, and not spicy enough, with so-so texture.  The second was good with the sweet and spicy, but froze rock-solid and had a grainy texture.

This one, I get the texture right, I spoil the flavor.  It's bland.  It's not so bad that it can't be eaten, but I wouldn't offer it to my friends.

I'm not giving a recipe yet, because I'm not happy with it yet.  You'll see this again when I get it right!

But for the purposes of the challenge, the ingredients were: water, yogurt, sugar, chai tea bags, and unflavored gelatin (which is why the texture improved so much, I'm sure, this is the first time I tried using it in a frozen concoction.)

Baking Challenge Week 9 - Cookies - Lady Grey Shortbread Thins

The cookies challenge was another one that I felt I needed to stretch myself on--the first thing I ever helped my parents make was a batch of sugar cookies at Christmas when I was four or so.  I've made more cookies in my life than cakes or pies or, well, anything.

I've done rolled cookies, piped cookies, pressed cookies.  Hand-formed.  Drop cookies, certainly.  Surprisingly enough, though, I've never had much luck at refrigerator cookies, probably because growing up, the sharpest knife in the house was dull, at best.  My parents didn't take their cooking tools as seriously as I do now!

I also wanted to try tea cookies--I've seen so many versions of Earl Grey cookies over the past few years, and they get rave reviews everywhere.   But I like Lady Grey tea better, and so...

Lady Grey Shortbread Thins
(makes about three dozen)

• 2 bags Twinings Lady Grey tea
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar

Open the tea bags and grind the leaves finely, either in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle.  Whisk the ground tea and salt into the flour.

In another bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar.  Gradually add the flour mixture and blend until the dough forms a ball.

Turn the dough out onto a sheet of waxed paper and, using the paper as a guide, form the dough into an even log about  1 1/2" in diameter.  Flatten the log alternately on two sides to form a square shape.   Wrap tightly, chill for at least one hour, or freeze.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F.  Slice the dough 1/4" thick and place the slices on a lightly greased baking sheet, 1" apart (or baking parchment, or silicone baking mats.)  Bake 8-10 minutes, until set and just golden.  Cool on wire racks.