Earl Grey & Huckleberry Tea Cakes #TheCakeSliceBakers

Here we are with the August edition of the Cake Slice Bakers. For 2020, we are baking from The New Way to Cake: Simple Recipes with Exceptional Flavor by Benjamina Ebuehi.*

In this group, we are given a selection of three cake recipes. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the links below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book. Here is the line-up of the August #TheCakeSliceBakers cakes...

Peach & Rosemary Pavlova

• A Little Bit of All Right
• Amandie Bakes

Earl Grey & Blueberry Tea Cakes

• All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Making Miracles
• Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Sweet Sensations

Summer Berry Cake

• My Recipe Reviews

Earl Grey & Huckleberry Tea Cakes

A quick note about the ingredient swap in my offering this month. Where I was lucky enough to forage fresh elderflowers for last month's Elderflower and Roasted Strawberry Layer Cake, this time I spotted bushes and bushes of ripe huckleberries on a hike.

I didn't have any containers that afternoon, so I went back the following day and had D and his friend help me forage the ripe huckleberries. So, I substituted foraged huckleberries for the blueberries in Ebuehi's version. I also added an Earl Grey-infused drizzle to my final dish.

Ingredients makes approximately 14 to 16 tea cakes

very slightly adapted from Ebuehi's recipe

Cakes

• 1/2 cup milk (I used whole milk)
• 2 Tablespoons loose leaf Earl Grey tea
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla bean paste
• 2-1/4 cups flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup organic granulated sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter + more for greasing pan
• 3 eggs
• 1-1/3 cup fresh huckleberries (use blueberries if you don't have huckleberries!)
• Also needed: muffin pan (I used a stoneware pan), a few more huckleberries for garnish

Glaze

• 3 Tablespoons brewed Earl Grey tea
• 1 cup organic powdered sugar

Procedure

Cakes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter the muffin pan and dust it lightly with flour. Shake out any excess flour and set aside.

In a sauce pan, pour the milk and add the loose tea. Heat over medium heat until bubbles are forming on the side - just before it comes to a boil. Stir in the vanilla paste and let the tea steep for at least 10 minutes. Strain out the tea leaves and set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until lightened and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at time until smooth. Fold in the flour until just moistened.Then fold the huckleberries into the batter.

Divide the batter evenly between the hollows. Note this recipe ended up making more than 10 - for me, anyway! - so I used a second pan and made a few more.

Place in the preheated oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. A toothpick inserted to the center should come out clean. Let cakes cool for 5 minutes in the pan until inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely. While they cool, make your glaze.

Glaze

Whisk all of the ingredients together until smooth. With a spoon, drizzle glaze over the top of the cooled muffins. Place a few fresh huckleberries on top of each one as a garnish. The glaze will harden a bit after sitting.

And, the next day I used the leftovers to make individual trifles with blue butterfly pea flower-colored whipped cream and fresh blueberries...because I was out of fresh huckleberries.

That's a wrap for our August Cake Slice Bakers event. Join us next month, again, on the 20th for more baking inspiration!

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