Tag Archives: Cooking with Tea

Holiday Cookies with Tea: Maple Chai Cookies & White Chocolate Frosted Matcha Cookies

Holiday season is upon us! With Thanksgiving just around the corner and holiday parties not far behind, we thought we’d share a couple of our favorite recipes for cookies that are made with tea. These treats are a delightful way to show off your love of tea to friends and family – or maybe try out a new flavor for yourself! We find that maple chai cookies offers a wonderful contrast to darker, smoky teas like Dominion Caravan, while the matcha cookies pair excellently with Japanese greens like Shincha.

Maple Chai Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup real maple syrup (Grade B syrup will give you a darker, richer flavor. We sourced ours from a local producer, Vale of the Blue Ridge Maple)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons maple chai tea

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease baking sheets or line with silicone baking mat.
Grind maple chai tea to a fine powder in a spice grinder or food processer and sift out any remaining large particles.
In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar together. Add egg, syrup, and vanilla. Mix until blended.
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and powdered chai. Stir into wet mixture until well combined.
Using a tablespoon or small cookie scoop, form dough into 1-inch balls. Place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart and flatten slightly.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly golden. Let cool on wire rack.

Matcha Cookies with White Chocolate Frosting

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons matcha
1 large egg
1½ cup bleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1-2 cups white chocolate pieces or chips, as needed
Red sprinkles or decorative sugar

In a small bowl, sift matcha until smooth and free of clumps.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together softened butter, sugar, and matcha about three minutes until smooth. Add egg and mix until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed throughout.
In a separate bowl, whisk or sift together flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Add dry mixture to wet and mix until a uniform dough forms, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
Cover dough and refrigerate for at least one hour.
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease baking sheets or line with silicone baking mat.
Using a tablespoon or small cookie scoop, form dough into 1-inch balls. Place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart and flatten slightly.
Bake 13-15 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are set, but not brown. Rest on baking sheet for 3-5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
Melt white chocolate in a double boiler, then generously dollop over each cookie, smoothing with the back of a spoon. Top with sprinkles or decorative sugar as desired.

By Jen Coate

3 Teas to Pair with Pumpkin Pie

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Pumpkin Pie is Great with Tea!

Tea makes an easy and wonderful accompaniment to your pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. It will help you digest everything you ate for the day and compliment one of the best courses. Below we highlight 3 teas to pair with pumpkin pie and even suggest a few for apple or cherry pie. Don’t worry, we have even put in a caffeine free option.

Jasmine green tea is a unique and amazing pairing with pumpkin pie. The floral notes of the tea blend with the sweetness and spicing of pumpkin pie. They compliment each other nicely. Cherry and Apple pie also go nicely with this tea.
Lapsang Souchong is another unique tea that pairs well with pumpkin pie. The smokiness of the tea tones down the sweetness of the pie while not overpowering the spiciness. The bold flavors and mouth feel of Pumpkin pie is what makes this a nice pairing. Other fruit pies maybe overpowered by this tea.
If you are not feeling adventurous, Nilgiri tea makes a perfect companion since it is both floral yet strong enough to hold its flavor with pumpkin pie. This beautiful black tea from southern India allows you to serve something unique without straying too far out of guests comfort zones.
Ginger Honeybush when drunk with Pumpkin pie creates a lemon citrus flavor when combined in your mouth that is also smooth. This surprising combination adds an unexpected twist to the Pumpkin pie that is refreshing. If this is too adventurous, Rooibos is just fine.

Don’t forget you can pair tea with other courses on your Thanksgiving menu. The idea is that the tea and food item compliment each other without having one flavor over power the other. You can find some ideas in our post on 3 unusual tea and food pairings.

Irish Breakfast Raspberry Muffins

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Irish Breakfast raspberry muffins are easy to make and a fun change to the usual morning meal. We used raspberries in this recipe because we happen to have a lot in the house currently, but you can incorporate any summer fruit or berry, just cut it into small pieces.

Irish Breakfast Raspberry Muffins – Ingredients

1 1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons of Irish Breakfast tea
2 cups of Whole Wheat Baking Flour or All Purpose Flour
1 cup of Old Fashion Rolled Oats (No instant Oatmeal, it will not set up correctly)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cup of raspberries cut in half
2 eggs 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
1/3 cup of agave nectar

Irish Breakfast Raspberry Muffins – Steps

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line your muffin pan with muffin liners or spray with oil so you can easily remove the muffins after baking.
Put the milk in a pan on the stove top with the tea and bring the milk up to just a simmer. You are looking for steam and small bubbles around the edges. Stir the tea leaves into the milk and periodically stir to make sure the milk does not burn to the bottom of the pan. This will only take about 5-7 minutes. Remove the milk from the heat and allow to sit with the tea still in it for at least 10 minutes.
While the tea is steeping, mix together in a bowl the flour, oats, salt, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Cut the raspberries in half and mix them into the dry ingredients. You want them coated in flour. Do not skip cutting down whatever fruit you chose to use, if the fruit pieces are bigger than 1/3 of an inch you will likely have problems with big holes and your muffins falling apart as the fruit shrinks in cooking.
Mix in a separate bowl the oil, agave nectar, vanilla extract, and eggs.
Strain the milk to remove the tea leaves and once cool mix into the liquids in step 4. The milk is cool enough if you can comfortably put your finger in it.
Add the liquid ingredients into the dry and mix until everything is incorporated and there are no dry ingredients.
Fill the muffin tin to about 2/3 of the way up the sides and bake for 14-16 minutes. Test with a toothpick (which should come out clean) before removing. Makes 12 regular sized muffins.

**If you want an even more intense tea taste, replace a tablespoon of the flour with a tablespoon of tea leaves. Crush the tea leaves into a powder using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.

Rose Tea Cupcakes with Jasmine Tea Icing

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Rose Tea Cupcakes with Jasmine Frosting

Rose Tea Cupcakes are a unique treat for your tea loving Valentine. These cupcakes can be made in advance and keep well in the refrigerator for about 5 days, if they last that long. While this cupcake recipe uses The Rose Garden tea, it can be made with your favor tea. The trick is to infuse both the butter and milk before making the cupcakes, which we will outline below.

Rose Tea Cupcakes-Ingredients

2 tablespoons of The Rose Garden tea
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of whole milk
3/4 cup of white granulated sugar
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt (Omit at your own risk, your cupcakes may not be as fluffy as you would like without this)
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 cup of All purpose flour (keep around a couple of tablespoons of flour in case you need to add more to the batter)

Jasmine Green Tea Frosting-Ingredients

2 tablespoons of Jasmine Green Tea
1 stick of butter
1/3 cup of whole milk
4 oz (1/2 block) of cream cheese
3 cups of confectioners sugar

Making Tea Infused Butter

Prepping Tea Infused Butter

We have made tea infused butter before. For the cupcakes and icing, you will make 2 separate batches of infused butter. With each one you will need 1 stick of butter and 3 grams of tea (or a rounded tablespoon).

For the cupcake batter, melt one stick of butter with 1 rounded tablespoon of The Rose Garden Tea. This should be done on the cook top and not in the microwave. Put both the tea and butter into the pot. Once the butter melts completely, remove from the burner and allow the tea to steep for another 10 minutes. Strain off the tea and allow the butter to cool. Feel free to use a spoon to press on the tea to squeeze out the butter that it absorbed. Make sure the butter is solid before adding it to the recipe for the cupcake. It will return to a solid state much faster if you put it in the refrigerator. I found it is easier to make the butter a day or two before the cupcakes so I am not tempted to use the liquid butter.

Repeat the same steps as above for the butter for the Jasmine icing. Just use a rounded tablespoon of Jasmine Green tea instead of the The Rose Garden tea. This butter also needs to be solid, but at room temperature for the icing to work correctly.

Making Tea Infused Milk

Rose Infused Milk

Just like the butter, we are going to heat the amount of milk shown above with a rounded tablespoon of the associated tea on the stove top. Do not walk away from the milk as it is heating as you do not want it to come to a boil. You are looking for steam to rise and a few small bubbles along the edges of the milk and you should start to smell the tea. Feel free to stir and make sure the tea leaves don’t just float on the top. As soon as the steam remains as you stir, pull the milk off the burner and allow the tea to steep in the milk for 10 minutes before straining. Again, feel free to use a spoon to press the tea against the strainer to squeeze out the milk it absorbed. The 1/2 cup of milk for the cupcakes will become roughly a 1/3 cup and the 1/3 cup for the icing will become a 1/4 cup. This is fine. Make sure the milk cools to at least room temperature before using in the recipe. It is fine to make this a day or two before making the ice cream, just store in a container with a tight fitting lid in the refrigerator.

Making Rose Tea Cupcakes

Make sure you have made the tea infused butter and milk and they have cooled before doing anything else.
Preheat the oven to 325°F and line your cupcake/muffin tray with paper liners for the cupcakes.
Using an electric stand mixer, beat together the The Rose Garden tea infused butter with the sugar. It should be mixed until lite and fluffy, about 5 minutes. You should stop the mixer a few times during the process and scrap down the sides and bottom to make sure everything is mixed evenly.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt and baking powder.
On low, adding 1 egg at a time, mix in the eggs with the sugar and butter.
Once all 3 eggs are mixed in, add the flour mixture and milk to the bowl, alternating about 1/3 of each at the time. Make sure each time that the ingredients are fully incorporated. Once down, take a look at the batter and pinch out a small amount. If is really shiny and feels oily, you will need to incorporate more flour. Using 1/2 tablespoon at a time, mix in the flour until the batter is shiny but doesn’t feel oily.
Put the batter into the paper liners, filling them about 2/3 of the way full. Put them in the oven for 25 minutes. A tooth pick should pull out clean. Do not over cook. These cup cakes will be pale yellow to white in color, you do not want brown edges.
Pull out the cupcakes and allow them to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before removing them from the tin and placing them on the cooling rack to come to room temperature.
Once the cupcakes are at room temperature, you may ice them.

Making Jasmine Green Tea Frosting

Put the cream cheese and Jasmine Green Tea Infused butter into an electric mixer and blend until fully incorporated, about 5 minutes.
Then mix in 1 1/2 cups of the confectioners sugar until fully incorporated.
Next add the Jasmine Green Tea Infused milk Mix until combined, it will look runny.
Last mix in the remaining 1 1/2 cup of the confectioners sugar. The icing should look thick and fluffy. It is a heavy frosting because of the cream cheese.
Using an icing knife or a butter knife, apply the icing to the cooled cupcakes in a circular motion. Scoop out about 1 1/2 tablespoons of icing at a time to apply. If you icing starts to run on the top of the cupcake you did not let them cool enough. You can package up the icing and put it in the refrigerator and apply it within 2 days of making the cupcakes. It will start to get to hard after that ice cleanly for you.

Celebrate Chinese New Year with Niangao

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Next week marks the start of the Chinese New Year, and what better why to mark the occasion than with a Chinese sweet traditionally served during the New Year celebration, Niangao. This is a very sweet and dense rice cake with a simple almond flavor that pairs nicely with a cup of tea. This cake is traditionally steamed, not baked. So make sure to check the section on equipment and setup for steaming a cake, it is actually easier than it sounds.

Niangao – Ingredients

2 cups of water
16oz or 1 pd of Dark Brown Sugar
16oz or 1 pd of Sweet (Glutenous) Rice Flour (Asian Market, this is NOT Brown Rice Flour)
2 tsp of Almond Extract
Toasted Sesame Seeds for Garnish
Pitted Chinese Dates for Garnish – Sliced in half or small pieces (These are not always easy to find at the Asian Market, so feel free to substitute Medjool Dates)

Niangao – Equipment

9 inch round cake pan or 1 large loaf pan
Large deep pan with lid that is big enough to hold the cake pan
Aluminium foil
Cooling rack
Toothpicks
Electric stand mixer
Small pan to boil water and sugar in
Large spoon for stirring
Spatula
Kettle full of hot water

Niangao – Instructions

Before you even pick up the ingredients it is critical to build your steamer. Now if you are used to using a bamboo rice steamer and your cake pan fits in it, go ahead and use that. For those of us that don’t have a bamboo steamer, we need to do some simple construction to build one. First make sure your cake pan fits nicely inside your large pan that has a tight lid, you need to have at least an inch of room above the cake pan when you set it in the bottom. If the lid is not tight, you will need to adjust your cooking time up to compensate for losing steam from the pan. Second, tear off 2 pieces of aluminium foil about the length of your forearm and shape them into snakes. If you are opting for the bread loaf pans, you may need 3 pieces. Do not crush them flat, you are building a platform to put your cake pan on so it does not sit in the boiling water. Shape the snakes into S or C and place into the bottom of the pan and put your cake pan on top. Adjust the height of the snakes so that the lid still fits over without touching the cake pan. Try your best to make them level otherwise you will find that your cake may come out thicker on side versus the other. Once you know everything fits, spray your pan and place it on your snakes. Start up your kettle full of water, you will use this water to fill up the pan at the appropriate time.
Take out the second pan and put in the 2 cups of water and dark brown sugar. Place it on a burner set to high and start stirring. The goal is to melt the sugar without allowing the water to come to a boil, so you cannot walk away. It will only take about 5 minutes for the water to steam and for you to no longer have sugar crystals along the side of the pan. Remember, do not let it boil. Once you know you are sugar crystal free, take the pan off the burner and put aside.
Put all the rice flour into the bowl of your stand mixer and slowly pour in the hot water. Set the mixer to low until all the water is in and then put it on medium. Once the water looks incorporated, stop the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom and start it again. Put in the almond extract and mix for a couple of minutes and then stop.
While your electric mixer is going, pour water out of the kettle into your steamer set-up. Take out the cake pan so you do not get it wet. You want enough water to come up about 3/4 of your snakes. Go ahead and turn on the burn the pan is sitting on. Since you already have warm water, set the burner to low. We want a simmering boil while the cake steams, not a rolling boil. Put the cake pan on your snakes and pour in the batter from your mixer bowl.
Sprinkle the toasted almonds and arrange the dates on top of the cake. Put the lid on the pan and allow to cook for 60 minutes. You should check the pan and possibly refill the water at the 25 minute mark. You will probably not need to refill the water if you have a tight fitting lid. If your lid is not tight fitting, plan on checking every 15 minutes. Remember we do not need the water at a rolling bubbling, just a gentle simmer.
When an inserted tooth pick comes out clean, the cake is done. Turn off the burner, and transfer the cake to your cooling rack. It needs to cool completely, which can take upwards of 3 hours. If you try to slice it sooner, it is a sticky mess. The cake can be cooled in the refrigerator.

To serve, slice the cake into thin pieces and rewarm in the microwave for 30 seconds so they are not rock hard. You can also fry them in a little sesame oil.

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