Hi folks!
So it’s been a month plus since I’ve updated, and about two months since my last recipe post.
Huge apologies for the delay but I’ve been just so caught up with school that I haven’t had time to bake & blog about it. The real reason why I was so busy throughout the month of October was the Citibank International Case Competition. I had been chosen to represent NUS in Hong Kong and just needed to catch up on all my work before I left (just so that I would hand in all my assignments on time) and when I got back.
We did clinch second place so it really paid off! Since then, I’ve been catching up on work and am in the midst of starting a business thing with Jancy (my Le Cordon Bleu buddy). I’ll keep you guys posted on the status of things but you can look forward to local flavoured as well as unique macarons.
Just last week, I also went for a food styling workshop at The Kitchen Society with Elodie B. It was a really good hands-on lesson so hopefully my pictures for 2015 will show an inkling of improvement. Fingers crossed for that.
Since I haven’t had time to update, I’m going to share a cake that I did back in August for a birthday order. The birthday girl really likes Moomin (a Japanese character) so that was the design behind the cake.
I paired an Earl Grey cake with my all time favourite Swiss Meringue Buttercream, but this time, lavender flavoured.
The cake and the buttercream are both easy to make. Piping the characters in SMBC, though, definitely proved to be much harder than I expected.
The birthday girl really liked the cake & I heard that the whole 8″ cake was finished by the end of the night 🙂
I made the same cake for my good friend Gen when she was back for her birthday this year & everyone enjoyed the cake too!
Well, without further ado, here’s the recipe for you to try:
Earl Grey Tea Cake with Lavender Buttercream
Makes one 8″ cake, roughly 2-3 inches high
Earl Grey Tea Cake
Ingredients:
- 6 Earl Grey teabags
- 160g unsalted butter, softened
- 500g caster sugar
- 480g plain flour
- 2tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 400ml whole milk
- 4 large eggs
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Grease two 8″ round tins and line with baking paper.
- Heat the milk gently over stove (but not to a boil) and place earl grey tea bags in to seep. Leave aside to cool (with bags still seeping)
- Place flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cubed butter in mixer until a sandy mixer is attained. Stop mixer.
- Cut the tea bags open (I cut about four, depending on whether you’re fine with the tea leaves in your cake – I personally think it looks quite nice) into the milk and then whisk the four eggs inside.
- Turn the mixer on to slow, and slowly add in the milk, scraping the sides of the bowl. Stop beating when mixture is smooth.
- Pour half the mixture into one tin and the other half in the other.
- Place into oven to bake for 25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
Lavender Buttercream
Ingredients:
- 2 egg whites (~60-70g)
- 100g sugar
- 150g unsalted butter
- 2 tsp dried edible lavender
Directions:
- Prepare dried edible lavender in an empty tea bag
- Put egg whites & sugar & edible lavender in a metal bowl & cook in a bain marie until sugar is totally dissolved and mixture is hot to touch
- Ensure that you whisk it continuously so that your egg whites do not become scrambled egg whites
- Once that is done, whip mixture up to soft peaks (I do this with my KitchenAid)
- Add the butter in in pieces
- Continue whisking until you get a nice buttercream
Well that’s it 🙂 A simple and yummy earl grey and lavender cake!
If you’ve got any questions, feel free to comment below.
Till my next update,
Eugenia <3
