I don’t believe I’ve ever baked a cake that included tea in its recipe list, so here I am. The “Jasmine Green Tea Cake,” from Benjamina Ebuehi’s The New Way to Cake, allowed me to make an important, desirable cake (as well as purchase a cute 5-inch cake pan).
Jasmine Green Tea Cake
The New Way to Cake,
Benjamina Ebuehi
FOR THE CAKE:
¼ cup unsalted butter
1 Tbsp. of jasmine green tea
4 eggs
⅔ cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
FOR THE SYRUP:
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup water
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tea bag of jasmine green tea
FOR THE GLAZE:
⅔ cup confectioners’ sugar
2 Tbsp. water
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease one round 5-inch cake pan and line with parchment paper.
To make the cake, add the butter and the tea to a small saucepan and heat on medium heat until the butter has melted. Remove from the heat and let the tea steep. Add the eggs and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer or heatproof bowl and set it over a pan of simmering water. Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Whisk the eggs until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch. Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk the eggs for 4 to 7 minutes, or until the eggs are thick, pale and tripled in volume. To test that the eggs are ready, turn off the mixer, lift out the whisk and let the mixture fall back in. It should leave a trail on the surface that will sink and disappear after a few seconds; this is called the ribbon stage. If this doesn’t happen, continue to whisk for 1 minute and repeat.
Sift a third of the flour on top of the eggs and very gently fold it in. You want to be careful not to knock out all of the air you’ve just incorporated. Sift in the remaining flour and fold again, making sure there are no pockets of flour hiding toward the bottom of the bowl. Carefully remove approximately ½ cup (doesn’t need to be exact) of the batter and put it in a small bowl. Pour in the melted green tea butter and stir to thoroughly combine. Fold this butter mixture back into the bowl of batter.
Gently pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 30 to 36 minutes, or until the cake is well risen and springs back to the touch. Don’t open the oven door in the first 20 minutes of baking, as this might cause the cake to sink. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool for 2 to 3 minutes, and then carefully turn it upside down onto a wire rack while still in the pan to cool completely. This will help avoid any sinking in the middle of the cake.
To make the syrup, add the sugar, water, zest and contents of the tea bag to a small saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Remove the pan from the cake and brush the syrup on top, letting it soak into the cake.
To make the glaze, mix together the sugar and water in a bowl until you have a thick but pourable consistency. Pour the icing on top of the cake, letting it spill over the edges.
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Notice how this cake includes little flour and no leaveners. I enjoyed whipping the tempered eggs in my mixer until they were airy. I reached the “ribbon stage” in 3 minutes.
Jasmine tea smells grassy. I folded my batter slowly, as instructed. After baking for 38 minutes, I had a cute, puffy, 5-inch cake.
The cake tastes spongy, soaked with the sweet syrup. Texturally, the “crunch” of tea leaves reminds me of the “crunch” of toasted coconut.
There’s a lot of sugar here
(in the cake, in the syrup,
in the glaze), but it doesn’t overwhelm the flavor. Smell the lemon in the syrup. That’s it! This cake smells like tea with lemon!
How nice is that?
Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The New Way To Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!
Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.
The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.
It is a new year and a new book - The New Way To Cake - and our choices for April 2020 were ~
Masala-Chai Carrot Cake
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