Black Tea Cupcakes

Prep: Put the butter in a bowl and bring to room temperature. Sift the ◎ ingredients together. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar in 2 to 3 batches, and mix well until pale and fluffy.

Beat the eggs well and add to the butter-sugar mixture in 2 to 3 batches, mixing well between additions. Next, add the almond flour, then the tea leaves taken out of the tea bags in that order, mixing each addition in well.

Sift in the ◎ dry ingredients in 2 to 3 batches. Change to a rubber spatula and fold in.

Pour the batter into the molds equally. Add toppings to taste, and bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. The baking time dependings on your oven or the molds, so adjust.

When the cakes are golden brown, test by sticking a toothpick in one. If it comes out clean with no batter, it's done. Let the cupcakes cool a bit on a rack, cover with plastic wrap and leave to cool completely.

[1] This is a simple version made with the basic ingredients listed. I used Earl Grey tea.

[2] For this version I used caramel flavored tea. I wanted to give it a milky flavor, so for the ◎ ingredients, I used 60 g of cake flour, 20 g of skim milk powder, 20 g cornstarch, and 1/2 of baking powder (for 6 cupcakes). I used walnuts, hazelnuts and pistachios as topping. This is the version I used for the step by step photos.

[2] I used apple tea for this version. I added raisins to the basic mix, and moistened the cakes with Calvados to finish.

[4] This is a chamomile tea version (I made 3 cupcakes). I used 40 g of unsalted butter and omitted the almond flour. 4 g of chamomile tea, the grated peel from 1/4 a lemon, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice were added to the basic ingredients.

After adding the eggs in Step 3, add the chamomile tea leaves → grated lemon peel → lemon juice in that order, then proceed to the next step.

By the way, this is the chamomile tea I used. The fragrance is subtle so I used two 2 g tea bags. Please the amount of tea and its strength adjust to your taste.