Earl Grey Cupcakes With Lemon Earl Grey Buttercream

As most of you might have already known, I've been doing bake sales in school and it's doing pretty decent! I'm only selling a couple of cupcake flavours so far.. and people really do seem to like the red velvet.

When I sell cupcakes however, people seem to gravitate only towards the classic flavours like chocolate and I don't really have time to experiment with unusual flavours.. except for today.

Lo & behold

Check it! An idea popped into my head the other day and I thought of making tea cupcakes. Matcha green tea cakes are already quite popular, so I thought Earl Grey would be pretty interesting.

I only like this brand so far. Other brands taste too earthy and not as light. Mmm.. I love the smell of black tea.

Yum! I actually emptied a full teabag into the batter, so you're actually eating the tea leaves. It might sound pretty weird but it's nice and moist and you can't feel the texture of any tea leaves at all. I wouldn't mind eating it alone as a muffin without the frosting.

A closer look to see it dotted with the tea leaves

Have a cuppa tea while you're at it

I was really concerned about having a picture-perfect frosting since I'm selling. The cream cheese icing for the red velvet cupcakes tasted really good, but they kept being too runny.

As mentioned

I kept testing different frosting recipes and ingredient ratios for this batch of tea cupcakes, and finally I HAVE DONE IT!

DOESN'T IT LOOK PRETTY?

I was so glad when it came out stiff and well-behaved! I didn't have any failed cupcakes at all.

If you look closer, you can see the lemon zest. The frosting is quite lemon-y, so I suggest keeping it to one tablespoon if you only want a hint of lemon.

A big bite for some yum in your tum!

Savour one with a cup of tea or some hot chocolate for the lovely rainy weather we've been having..

Have a good day everyone!



Earl Grey Cupcakes with Lemon Earl Grey Buttercream
Adapted from Honey & Jam and Yi Reservation

Cupcakes(Makes 16):
1cup Unsalted butter, room temperature
1.5cup sugar
4 Eggs
1cup Cake flour
1¾cup All purpose flour
1tsp Baking powder
1tsp Baking soda
1cup Milk
2 bags Earl grey tea
Few drops of vanilla extract

Frosting:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 cups of powdered sugar
zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 tbsn. lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons of earl grey tea leaves

Preheat oven to 176C.

In an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, sift both flours, baking soda and baking powder. Whisk dry ingredients into cream gradually and then add earl grey and milk. Bake for 16-18 mins.

For the frosting, beat butter until light and fluffy then gradually add sugar. Beat in zest and juice and finally incorporate the earl grey tea leaves.

Enjoy!