Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Nice cuppa tea and a sit down




As soon as I received my fabulous Teacupcake silicone moulds I knew that I had to make some tea based cupcakes in them! At first I toyed with matcha cupcakes, but as these moulds screamed out 'afternoon tea' and 'English-ness' to me I decided to go with the Earl Grey cupcakes from my Primrose Bakery book.

The recipe was fairly easy to make and the only extra ingredients I had to buy were Earl Grey teabags (I'm more of a Twinnings English Breakfast gal), and some almond extract, which was a bit costly, but was an optional ingredient. I'm glad I bought it, it added a lovely aroma and flavour to the cake.

I halved the mixture and ended up with four teacups and cupcake in a normal cupcake cake. I sat the moulds in a pyrex dish lid so they were easy to get in and out of the oven and helped them retain their shape slightly.



The cupcakes were topped, as suggested, with vanilla frosting (again I halved the recipe), coloured purple with Sugarflair grape violet paste colour. After tweeting about how best to get a nice lilac colour I opted for paste and was lucky enough to find it quite centrally in Islington at the Make Lounge. I also picked up a large piping star and as you can see tried my hand at piping and I am quite proud of how cute they came out for my first proper try at piping. I used some disposable piping bags from Lakeland and I highly recommend them - even I managed to use them without making a mess.

The cupcakes tasted delicious - a hint of flowery Earl Grey-ness to the lovely moist cupcake and as usual the Primrose frosting was very moreish! I'd definitely recommend making them and would make them again. Next time its Matcha cupcakes in the teacups!

Oh, and with disposable bags you can pipe the leftover frosting straight into your mouth when you're finished piping :)

"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And whoever this "Earl Grey" fellow is, I'd like to have a word with him... " Captain Picard, Star Trek

10 comments:

Sarah-Jane - SiliconeMoulds.com said...

I've been very impressed with the Primrose Bakery book so far and have made the raspberry cupcakes and the vanilla.

I really fancy making the Earl Grey ones sometime soon. There is a fabulous shop in Norwich for loose leaf teas called The Tea Junction and they do soem wonderful varieties there

The Caked Crusader said...

I am pleased to come across another advocate of the "piping leftover frosting straight into your mouth" school of thought!

Lovely looking cupcakes - I have these moulds but haven't tried them yet

I heart cupcakes said...

I can also recommend the chocolate recipe and frosting from the Primrose cookbook - one of the best frostings I've made.

I'm not too keen on Earl Grey so I used teabags (as the recipe stated) and they turned out well :)

Piping frosting straight into your mouth is FAB - glad I'm not the only one!

I really like the moulds - just had to be careful when filling them - they're quite flimsy

Manny said...

Those cupcakes tasted lovely and looked great too. It was fun eating them out of the tea cup moulds, what a cool idea they are :)

It was great fun sharing the frosting bag with you too xxxx

I heart cupcakes said...

@Manny - thanks hon,glad you liked them! Love the squirty frosting too x

Kara said...

Oh I am so super jealous of these, they are the cutest, did you have a little tea party ?
I have just ordered some pastes as supposdly they work miles better than colouring.
Love the thought of you piping into your mouth xx

I heart cupcakes said...

@Kara - we did indeed. They're some of the cutest things I've seen.
Pastes are much better - can't believe I was too lazy to get round to using them before!
The disposable bags are perfect for piping straight into your mouth with any left over frosting :)

Anonymous said...

Hello! These cupcakes are absolutely the prettiest things I have seen this week!! I was about to purchase a couple of sets of the molds online, but after seeing some of the reviews, I hesitated! Did they stain after the first use in your experience? I wouldn't really wanna spend $18 dollars per set of 4 molds if they won't last....would really appreciate your feedback! Tnx! :)

I heart cupcakes said...

@Anon - mine didn't stain at all and came out of the mold easily. I didn't use any spray or anything, but maybe its because I made quite light coloured cakes - I think perhaps red velvet would stain them (but they do most things!)

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the quick response! :)