Although I hate to go on about my adorable kitten all the time, I was always taught to write about insights into your life in blog posts; so here I am doing just that. My relatives have been saying ‘You got Ash so your blog would get hits!’ so not true, but hey it hasn’t not helped ;p
I may have mentioned this on Twitter but as you know, I have a slight (okay huuugge) obsession for Tea. Any kind, Matcha, Fruit, English Breakfast… I could go on but I’ve found out that Ash’s favourite is Peppermint. I think, thrice now I’ve made a Peppermint tea and found it half gone after popping to the loo. How peculiar indeed!
And again, he was there eating my Jasmine Tea buttercream off my freshly, pretty baked cake. I’m sure the butter had something to do with it.
Brought some coconut last week and hadn’t found time to use it and I mostly got inspiration from these Chinese, fresh cream swirl cakes that I used to buy at the Chinese supermarket when I could tolerate gluten; I really wanted one today.
I love tea, there I said it again. I love the variety I suppose, and even better now I’ve decided to write a load of recipes experimenting with different kinds of infusions. It really gives the cake a very slight fragrant taste, not as powerful as adding say lavender of which I dislike. I prefer all the flavours to blend together and then you just get this last hint of jasmine. Of course, do experiment yourself with the amount of tea you put in.
It really is about how you like your tea.
Flower of the mountain Jasmine tea and coconut cake
Cake Ingredients
200g soft unsalted butter, plus a bit extra for greasing pans
200g caster sugar
2 tablespoons of strong strained Jasmine tea
1 teaspoon of dried Jasmine tea crushed in a pestle and mortar
4 medium eggs
100g self-raising gluten free flour, plus extra for dusting
50g of dried coconut
50g almond flour
½ teaspoon of xanthan gum
Frosting Ingredients
200g icing sugar, sifted
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
Tablespoon of dried Jasmine tea crushed in a pestle and mortar
Dried Coconut for topping (that’s been steeped in water for 10 mins, then strained)
Directions:
Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5.
Grease 2 x 20cm sandwich tins. Place the butter, sugar and crushed,strained tea into a bowl and beat well to a creamy consistency.
Beat in the eggs gently then fold in the flour and coconut. Mix until all combined.
Divide the mix evenly between the cake tins, place into the oven and bake for about 20 mins until just turning brown.
Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool on a wire rack after taking them out of their tins.
Make your frosting. Add 50g of butter to 200g of icing sugar and the tablespoon of finely crushed Jasmine tea, mix until well combined and of a good icing consistency.
When your cake layers are cool enough for icing, put a 1/3 of the icing in the center for the filling and spread evenly, coat with a light layer of coconut.
Pop your other layer on top and ice once again, dusting with coconut and any other decorations you wish to put on! Flowers are nice :p
Serve with a cup of Jasmine, just after it’s rained and the sun comes through. Or indeed, to your cat.
