Yesterday, being a perfectly miserable day, a friend from
West Brunswick and I decided it was high time to check out all the fuss about
the newest café in the area, John Gorilla. Unfortunately we didn’t count on
nearly everyone in the vicinity having the exact same idea as us. Faced with
hungry stomachs and a wait over half an hour for a table, my friend suggested
we venture around the corner to a lesser known café by the name of Factory.
01 October 2012
Cooking with Tea
Now I will be the first to admit that I'm not altogether behind the idea of cooking with tea. Oh, I find it all fascinating and get very excited every time I stumble across a recipe, but I've really never had much success with it all. I would love to tea smoke a fish or tea poach a chicken, but the flavours never seem to come out properly.
Baking, on the other hand, is a hobby I spend far too much time indulging in. Tea and sweets seem made to go together. I've had varying degrees of success when trying to incorporate tea right into my baking, and I will share some of these with you at a later date. However, I thought today I would share with you a little something is a little easier, a lot more foolproof, and tastes enough like tea that you won't mind it's really tea free!
Ingredients
1 cup self-raising flour
2-3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp all spice
1/2 tsp ground cardamon
125g butter (at room temperature)
2/3 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
Preheat your oven to 180. Prepare some muffin tins by lining with pattipans (or if you are very lucky, someone will have given you a delightful set of tea cupcake moulds).
Beat the butter and brown sugar until pale and creamy. Add in eggs, one at a time, while beating.
Add the spices and 1/2 a cup of flour. Mix this all together, then add 1/3 cup of buttermilk and mix again. Add the rest of the flour, mix, and then the rest of the buttermilk to finish the batter off.
Fill the muffin tins with the batter, about 3/4 full.
Bake in the pre-heated oven until a skewer comes out clean. This should take between 15-18 minutes, depending on your oven. Don't forget to rotate the tins half way through!
Eat them while still warm, or if you can resist the temptation, let them cool and dust with cinnamon. I like to ice them with a light honey buttercream, but they are especially decadent topped with a chocolate ganache.
Side note: For those simply desperate to incorporate tea into this recipe, may I suggest infusing the buttermilk with an Assam. I would say 3-4 teaspoons for this recipe, in about 3/4 a cup of buttermilk to yield the correct amount. Heat gently and infuse for around 5 minutes.
Baking, on the other hand, is a hobby I spend far too much time indulging in. Tea and sweets seem made to go together. I've had varying degrees of success when trying to incorporate tea right into my baking, and I will share some of these with you at a later date. However, I thought today I would share with you a little something is a little easier, a lot more foolproof, and tastes enough like tea that you won't mind it's really tea free!
Chai Cupcakes
Ingredients
1 cup self-raising flour
2-3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp all spice
1/2 tsp ground cardamon
125g butter (at room temperature)
2/3 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
Preheat your oven to 180. Prepare some muffin tins by lining with pattipans (or if you are very lucky, someone will have given you a delightful set of tea cupcake moulds).
Beat the butter and brown sugar until pale and creamy. Add in eggs, one at a time, while beating.
Add the spices and 1/2 a cup of flour. Mix this all together, then add 1/3 cup of buttermilk and mix again. Add the rest of the flour, mix, and then the rest of the buttermilk to finish the batter off.
Fill the muffin tins with the batter, about 3/4 full.
Bake in the pre-heated oven until a skewer comes out clean. This should take between 15-18 minutes, depending on your oven. Don't forget to rotate the tins half way through!
Eat them while still warm, or if you can resist the temptation, let them cool and dust with cinnamon. I like to ice them with a light honey buttercream, but they are especially decadent topped with a chocolate ganache.
Side note: For those simply desperate to incorporate tea into this recipe, may I suggest infusing the buttermilk with an Assam. I would say 3-4 teaspoons for this recipe, in about 3/4 a cup of buttermilk to yield the correct amount. Heat gently and infuse for around 5 minutes.
23 May 2012
Faux Pas and A Nice Cup of Tea
Oh dear. Dear readers, just yesterday I made the most unforgivable of tea-related faux pas. Let me relate the tale...
My fellow tea lover and great friend, we shall call him Master M, called by my house yesterday. I have been a bit lax with my shopping this week, so all I could offer food wise was half a chai tea cupcake before we journeyed off to Prahran to support a friend's band.
Imagine my horror when Master M pointed out, as we were lining up for the gig, that I had failed to offer him tea! Without fail, when I have visited his house I have always had tea (granted this is mostly at my own insistence). I am a terrible host!
To soothe my anquish, Lady J sent me through this piece this morning which I thought I would share with you all. It is from Mr George Orwell...
A Nice Cup of Tea
My fellow tea lover and great friend, we shall call him Master M, called by my house yesterday. I have been a bit lax with my shopping this week, so all I could offer food wise was half a chai tea cupcake before we journeyed off to Prahran to support a friend's band.
Imagine my horror when Master M pointed out, as we were lining up for the gig, that I had failed to offer him tea! Without fail, when I have visited his house I have always had tea (granted this is mostly at my own insistence). I am a terrible host!
To soothe my anquish, Lady J sent me through this piece this morning which I thought I would share with you all. It is from Mr George Orwell...
A Nice Cup of Tea
21 May 2012
A Quest for Scones - Winchelsea Tea Rooms
I have a dear friend, let's call her Lady J, who is a knitter. A voracious knitter, you could say. You will rarely find her without a half-knitted something in her bag. I will admit I've taken advantage of this over the short time I've known her, having acquired a pair of socks, gloves and two hats (all very cosy).
As it would happen, Lady J's birthday is coming up and there was a particular wool shop she wanted to visit near Colac, so as a bit of a pre-birthday expedition we set off on the weekend on a quest for wool and scones. Because every good road trip should include scones and tea at some stages, no?
As it would happen, Lady J's birthday is coming up and there was a particular wool shop she wanted to visit near Colac, so as a bit of a pre-birthday expedition we set off on the weekend on a quest for wool and scones. Because every good road trip should include scones and tea at some stages, no?
15 May 2012
Return and Covet
Alright, I will be the first to admit - after the amazingly heavenly experience of Monk Bodhi Dharma, which I really didn't think I could top, I put the blog on hold. In the year I've been away I've moved, travelled to China and drunk a whole lot of tea.
The Melbourne tea scene surely seems to be heating up in my absence, with a new tea cafe in Fitzroy and plans for ones in Northcote and West Brunswick. It is to these ends that I am back, navigating the oft times disastrous path of the tea connieseur in the hopes of easing the way for those that follow.
So! Where will we start today?
The problem with so many cafes in Melbourne is that they go to the effort of sourcing a nice tea, and then pour scorching water from the espresso machine over it. I have to say, I'm guilty of a similar crime at work where the only hot water comes out of a dual boiling/chilled filter. So when I was reading a magazine and stumbled across this all I could think was "WANT". What am I coveting this week?
The TeaTotal
Ok, not actually finished development yet, and more for the cafe scene, but can you imagine how this little baby will change the tea drinking experience?
Cambridge Consultants, the brains behind this device, say: Users, in the form of cafe patrons, home consumers, or those at a vending machine, select the preferred loose-leaf tea variety, temperature, and strength level. Instead of walking away with a tea bag attached to a string dangling out of a to-go cup, the tea drinker becomes witness to the process itself: the tea is introduced to the water, where a stirring mechanism facilitates consistency and steeping efficiency. When ready, the finished tea is funneled into a waiting cup
What a completely brilliant idea. Never again would a tea drinker be served a burnt, over brewed tea bag. Fantastic!
Check out more on the TeaTotal here
The Melbourne tea scene surely seems to be heating up in my absence, with a new tea cafe in Fitzroy and plans for ones in Northcote and West Brunswick. It is to these ends that I am back, navigating the oft times disastrous path of the tea connieseur in the hopes of easing the way for those that follow.
So! Where will we start today?
The problem with so many cafes in Melbourne is that they go to the effort of sourcing a nice tea, and then pour scorching water from the espresso machine over it. I have to say, I'm guilty of a similar crime at work where the only hot water comes out of a dual boiling/chilled filter. So when I was reading a magazine and stumbled across this all I could think was "WANT". What am I coveting this week?
The TeaTotal
Ok, not actually finished development yet, and more for the cafe scene, but can you imagine how this little baby will change the tea drinking experience?Cambridge Consultants, the brains behind this device, say: Users, in the form of cafe patrons, home consumers, or those at a vending machine, select the preferred loose-leaf tea variety, temperature, and strength level. Instead of walking away with a tea bag attached to a string dangling out of a to-go cup, the tea drinker becomes witness to the process itself: the tea is introduced to the water, where a stirring mechanism facilitates consistency and steeping efficiency. When ready, the finished tea is funneled into a waiting cup
What a completely brilliant idea. Never again would a tea drinker be served a burnt, over brewed tea bag. Fantastic!
Check out more on the TeaTotal here
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