tea and milk cakes

I've been on a bit of a splurge cooking accessories wise...I completely needed to, they were investment purchases yadda...yadda..yadda- reads as "I saw pretty things and had to buy immediately". My first purchase were some amazing silicone cupcake moulds in the shape of teacups. It occurred to me that for a tea cup mould I needed a tea based recipe. Everyone has heard of a coffee cake but a teacake is its quieter sibling. I don't mean a teacake as in the spiced and fruited version that we have over easter but instead flavoured with tea leaves. After some debate with myself down the teabag aisle of the supermarket i opted for a blueberry,blackcurrant and raspberry tea; i thought it would be a little more exciting and colourful then a regular earl grey because as you know, I love a bit of colour. I do have to apologise for the picture quality though. There a bit dark as I baked them quite late at night and the lighting is all artificial but you get the idea...

makes 12-14 cupcakes

for the cakes:

• 4 tea bags (whatever flavour you choose, mine were the blackcurrent, blueberry and raspberry)
• 3 tbsp hot water -just boiled
• 80g butter at room temperature
• 280g caster sugar
• 240g plain flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4tsp salt
• 200ml milk
• 2 large eggs

For the frosting:

• 50ml full fat milk
• 500g icing sugar
• 160g butter
• 2 lemons

1. preheat your oven to 190'C and line your cupcake tray with cases
2. pop the teabags in a small bowl and pour over your 3 tbsp of hot water. It may not sound a lot but your creating a concentrated syrup. Leave these to stew for half an hour or so and get on with making the batter
3. cream together your butter and sugar to a light and fluffy consistency and set aside
4. in a jug, mix together your eggs and milk and the pop these to a side too. then wring out the teabags into the milk, squeezing out every last bit of tea you can
5. sift together (twice please!!) your flour, baking powder and salt
6. in stages mix your flour mixture and your milk mixture into the butter. doing it a third at a time helps to combine everything really well and also stop your batter from splitting
7. drop the mixture into the cases so that each is around 2/3rds full and then put them in the oven for around 18-20 minutes. mine were ready at 18 but you may just need a few more minutes. when they are fully cooked, remove them from the oven and leave in the tray for 5 minutes. after 5 minutes remove them to a wire rack to cool fully
8. to make the lemon butter frosting, cream your butter so that it is very, very soft. then in stages mix in the milk and icing sugar. it makes the frosting a little easier to work with this way instead of just throwing everything into a bowl
9. grate in the zest of one large lemon and give the frosting a good stir so that the lemon zest is fully incorporated
10. ice the now cooled cupcakes and give them a final flourish of lemon zest for decoration 

xoxox