#34 - Earl Grey Cookies

If you are one who adore hard, crunchy cookies or if you prefer cookies that are stronger and sweeter in their taste, this recipe is not for you. This recipe yields the perfect soft-baked yet crumbly cookies. In terms of flavour, it is not strong and not so sweet at all. It is very light in terms of taste and it simply melts in your mouth. 

Earl Grey tea has always been one of my favourite tea and I am constantly thinking of ways to incorporate it into my baking. I absolutely adore this recipe because of the use of real tea leaves in the dough which I felt gave the cookies a delicate and fragrant flavour to it.

For me, I like to enjoy these cookies over a cup of Earl Grey Tea and the combination is just perfect. The tea will bring out every flavour there is in the cookies. This is just the perfect melt-in-your-mouth cookie to go for for an afternoon tea party.

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from here

Servings

Make approximately 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

200 grams All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

250 grams Unsalted Butter, softened

80 grams Castor Sugar

40 grams Brown Sugar

1 Egg

2 tbsp Milk

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 tbsp Lemon Juice

7 grams Earl Grey Tea Leaves, cut finely

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Prepare 2 baking sheets, lined with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

3. Sift and combine all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). 

4. In a mixer bowl, cream together butter with both sugars until creamy and fluffy.

5. Add in egg, vanilla extract and lemon juice gradually and beat until smooth. 

6. Combine dry ingredients in Step (3) to the wet ingredients in Step (5), one third portion at a time and mix well.

7. Add in tea leaves to the batter. Mix well until a soft dough is achieved. Ensure that all the ingredients are well-incorporated.

8. Using a small ice-cream scoop, scope and divide the dough into small portions (ball-shaped). Place them on the baking sheets. Ensure that they are at least 3 cm apart from one another. 

9. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to turn light golden brown.

10. After removing cookies from oven, allows the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

(My hubby prefers cookies that are hard and crunchier in texture. Hence, I baked some of the cookies for an extra 3 minutes to achieve such a texture. Note that the colour of these cookies will be much darker.)

#18 - Green Tea Chocolate Chip Muffins

I have never been a great fan of green tea items (other than sweetened green tea which really isn't much of a green product anyway) so when bff suggested baking some green tea muffins, I was actually glad to give it a try. I know that if she hadn't suggested it, I would probably not try out much green tea recipe due to my lack of interest in this ingredient. Thanks for the suggestion! 

For the muffins, I must say that they turned out tasting better than I thought they would. It was soft and sweet and the green tea flavour was rather subtle, which really cater to my liking. Not to mentioned, the  yummy chocolate chips brought the taste up a level! 

Note:
(1) For green tea lover, you should increase the amount of green tea to 2 or 3 tbsp instead, depending on your preference.
(2) To prevent the muffins from sticking to the paper liners, you may either omit the use of paper liners or substitute 95ml of vegetable oil with 50g of butter and 45ml of vegetable oil instead.

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Servings

Make approximately 10

Ingredients

250g All Purpose Flour

1 tbsp Green Tea Powder

2 and 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

60g Chocolate Chips

1 Egg

80g Fine Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

95ml Vegetables Oil

3tbsp Yogurt

190ml Milk

Toppings (optional)

Additional chocolate chips

Green Tea Powder / Green Tea Whipped Cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200C and line muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside for later use. 

2. Sieve the dry ingredients (flour, green tea powder, baking powder and salt) together and set aside. 

3. Using a small bowl, toss the chocolate chips with 3 tbsp of flour. Once all the chocolate chips are coated in flour, set aside. This will ensure that the chocolate chips will not sink to the bottom of the batter and will be able to spread well across the muffins.

4. In a mixing bowl, beat in an egg until it is pale. Add in sugar and vanilla extract. Whisk these ingredients together using a whisk until the mixture is light-coloured. 

5. Add in vegetable oil, yogurt and milk and whisk them together until they are well combined and a thick mixture is obtained. 

6. Combined the wet ingredients in Step (5) to the dry ingredients in Step (2). Make a well in the dry ingredients and slowly pour in the wet ingredients into the well. Fold in the flour mixture slowly using a spatula until the combined mixture is well-mixed, with no trace of flour. Be careful not to over mix the batter.

7. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips into the mixture using a spatula. 

8. Using an ice-cream scoop, divide the batter evenly into 10 muffins cups. Each muffin cup should be filled up to 2/3 of the way. 

9. Tap muffin tray on tabletop and shake it gently to ensure that the batter is level and evenly spread out. This also help to make sure that any excess air is removed from the batter. You may then sprinkle some chocolate chips on each muffin cups before baking them in the oven (optional).

10. Bake for 20 minutes (turn the muffin tray front-to-back after 10 minutes) or until the top of the muffins become golden brown and toothpick when inserted comes out clean. Remove muffins from oven and cool in muffin tins for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to allow them to cool completely. 

11. You may want to dust the muffins with green tea powder or frost the muffins with green tea whipped cream before serving (optional). 

#05 - Earl Grey Chocolate Cake with Almond

When I came back from Bali last week, I brought back with me packets of different types of tea. One of which is my all time favourite, Earl Grey. I really like the distinctive aroma of the earl grey tea, especially so when it is use in bakes. My initial idea was to make a simple Earl Grey Cake, with a light brushing of lemon syrup on the top. But since I was having this craving for chocolates, so I thought, why not combined the two? There, you go. Earl Grey Chocolate Cake. The almonds were added so as to give the cake a better texture and better crunch when you bite into the cake. 

Be prepared to receive a really moist chocolate cake with strong and rice flavour of earl grey in it. Yummy!

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Recipe: Adapted & modified from here.

Servings

Serves 10 to 12

Ingredients: 

5 Earl Grey tea bags

1 cup hot water

3/4 cup (113g) chocolate, melted & cooled

2 cup (256g) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup (201g) sugar

1/2 cup  (113g) butter

3 eggs

1/2 cup (140g) yogurt

1 cup of chopped almond bits

Icing sugar

Directions

1. Brew the tea in the hot water and let it simmer. Remove the tea bags after 30 minutes for a strong tea flavour. Set the brewed tea aside for later use.

2. Melt the chocolate using microwave and set aside. 

3. Preheat the oven to 180C and butter the bundt pan evenly.

4. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt) and set aside.

5. Cream the butter and sugar using a mixer and when a creamy mixture is obtained, add in the eggs and melted chocolate. Make sure the mixture blend well. 

6. Using a spatula, fold in the flour mixture (1/3 portion at one time) into the wet mixture and make sure the combined mixture is well blended.

7. Alternate the addition of yogurt and tea into the batter and you should get a well-mixed smooth and creamy batter with no traces of flour. 

8. Mix in the almond bits using the spatula. 

9. Pour the creamy batter into the bundt pan. Using a butter knife, run the knife through the batter a few times so as to remove any air bubbles.

10. Bake for about 35 minutes. Invert the bundt pan immediately on a raised cooling rack and allow the cake to cool. When the cake is completely cooled, removed the bundt pan and dust the cake with icing sugar before serving.