COOKING COMPANION TEA-BASED DESSERTS


Tea is known for its delicate flavours, and it’s long been known to be a great addition to baking: a traditional fruit-studded tea loaf is a thing of beauty! It’s not just English breakfast tea that can be used to liven up sweet treats, though: read on for ways to impress guests with your use of Earl Grey and matcha…


ORANGE AND EARL GREY CAKE


This is a simple Tunisian recipe, but dressed up in style. This recipe is gluten-free and the cake could also be dairy-free if you don’t use the butter icing.


Gluten FREE


1 lemon 1 orange 800ml water 1 tbsp loose-leaf Earl Grey tea 6 eggs


220g sugar 250g ground almonds 1 tsp baking powder A pinch of salt


FOR THE BUTTER ICING: 250g softened butter 250 icing sugar A drop of bergamot oil (optional)


FOR THE DRIZZLE: 300g icing sugar A little Earl Grey tea


TO DECORATE: Dried rose petals (optional) Finely chopped pistachios (optional)


1 Grease and line two 20cm round cake tins. Preheat the oven to 160C / Gas 4.


Miles Earl Grey You can smell the tea before you even


open the box, a perfect pairing with aſternoon cake. It’s also great for baking because the


blend contains real oil of bergamot.


2 Poach the lemon and orange in a pan, add the water and bring to a simmer.


3 Add the loose-leaf Earl Grey tea and cook for 1 hour.


4 Drain, cool and blitz the fruit in a food processor then leave to one side.


5 Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and white. Add in the blitzed fruit and whisk a little more.


SERVES 6-8


6 Put the ground almonds in a separate bowl with the baking powder and salt.


7 Fold the egg mix into the dry mix and split the mixture between the two prepared cake tins.


8 Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until they’re evenly light brown on top and leave to cool in the tins.


FOR THE BUTTER ICING:


1 Put the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and beat until light and fluffy (we add a drop of bergamot oil).


2 Turn the cakes out of their tins and sandwich together with butter icing.


3 Coat the outside with a layer of icing, too. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to set whilst you make the drizzle.


FOR THE DRIZZLE:


1 Place the icing sugar into a bowl and add the Earl Grey tea a teaspoonful at a time until you have a fairly thick and smooth mixture.


2 Add more icing sugar/tea to get to a slow dropping consistency and pour this on top of the cake. Start in the middle and push to the edges to let it drizzle down the side. Too wet and it’ll run right off the cake, too firm and it won’t go anywhere.


3 We decorate this one with dried petals and a pistachio crumb but you can use anything you like really!


From Ahh Toots for The Bristol Cook Book, published by Meze Publishing


www.djmiles.co.uk FOODLOVERMAGAZINE.COM | 59


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