Favourite ice tea smoothie

I'm quite a fan of tea. Not an expert, rather quite far from the worst expert ever there is. But I love my tea: sometimes with herbs or flowers we've picked ourselves, sometimes great quality black, usually green and always without sugar.

And I crave quite everything flavoured with tea (especially when it's this cake). This dessert however, breakfast or whatnot is as easy as it gets, but it's great when made with different teas. You know, something different each time!

Favourite ice tea smoothie
(serves 1)

2 dl yoghurt
1 dl strong tea (any kind), cooled
about 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp sugar
(vanilla)
(ice cubes)

1. Mix tea with yoghurt, adding as much sugar as you like. If desired, flavour with vanilla.
2. Enjoy with a straw or with white moustache!;) Add ice cubes, if desired.
   

The smoothie is only as good as you make it;) Good tea equals good smoothie, subtly sweet, thin enough to drink smoothly through a straw. I guess it's a good variation of iced tea for those hot hot days that are yet to arrive..

But it's also a contribution to the Spring Tea Party event held by Erin of The Skinny Gourmet. Now I want to see what people come up with when thinking 'tea'!

Hazelnut cake with curd cheese and black tea cream : My layered cake dream just came true

I've kept my promise.
I'VE KEPT MY PROMISE!

Who would have guessed? I made this yum curd cheese mousse with black tea in late August and promised to make a layered hazelnut cake with black tea egg-buttercream filling. And...well...I almost kept it. That's a start, right?:)

Maria Öhrn is a fabulous Swedish cookbook author. I browsed through her 'Tårtor' (or 'Tordid' in Estonian, I don't know if it's been translated to English) in a bookstore, said some kind words about it and ended up getting two of these books for my birthday.

Woosh.
Better 2 than none, right? Anyway, although the book contains only about 30 recipes, they are all so very different and most of them have this nice twist to them. I love twists. I could eat twists every day. For this layered cake I used Maria's recipe for hazelnut cake (originally paired with canned pears and Nutella!)


Hazelnut cake with curd cheese and black tea cream
(cake base recipe from Maria Öhrn's 'Tårtor' (Cakes))

200 g hazelnuts
1 dl potato starch
1 tsp baking powder
1 ml salt
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
2 dl sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 batch of curd cheese mousse with black tea
for decorating: black tea glazed apples and caramelized hazelnuts

1. Grind hazelnuts well using a food processor or a coffee grinder
2. Mix hazelnut flour with potato starch, baking powder and salt.
3. In a clean and dry bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.
4. Beat the yolks slightly with sugar using a whisk, add dry ingredients and milk to the mixture
5. Gradually add the egg white.
6. Pour the batter into a greased 24 cm springform pan. Bake at 175C for about 45 minutes (it took me only about 35). Let the cake cool completely
7. Cut the cake into two layers and spread the curd cheese mousse between them and on the top and the sides (Use quite much of it between the layers). Chill at least for a couple of hours before serving.
   
8. If you wish, decorate with black tea glazed apples and caramelized hazelnuts, setting the apples in the center of the cake and the nuts along the sides. This can be done either before or after chilling the cake.

Black tea glazed apples
(adapted from Epicurious)

2 smaller apples
1 dl sugar
2 teabags of black tea
powdered sugar

1. Combine sugar with 2 dl of water in a saucepan and add teabags.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile peel the apples, slice both into 8 wedges and cut out the cores.
4. Remove teabags from the syrup and add apple wedges. Simmer at low heat for about 15 minutes.
5. With a slotted spoon, transfer the apples onto a rack (used in the oven) set over a baking tray and drain them for 10 minutes.
6. Preheat your oven's grill function. Then sprinkle the apple wedges with some powdered sugar and put both the rack and the baking tray into the oven (you need the tray so that the liquid that drips from the apples doesn't stick to the bottom of your oven). Grill for 3-5 minutes. Let cool.

Caramelized hazelnuts

1 1/2 dl hazelnuts
2 tbsp powdered sugar
a pinch of salt

1. Use unpeeled nuts for a rustic effect or peel them. To do that, just roast them on a dry skillet for some time and then rub the peels of with the help of a kitchen towel.
2. Combine all three ingredients on a pan over moderate heat.
3. When sugar starts to melt, reduce heat to low and stir the nuts constantly until they are covered with caramelized sugar
4. Pour the nuts onto a piece of foil in a single layer and cool.

My expectations were sky-high, because OF COURSE I'd tried bits and pieces of the cake when I cut it into 2 layers and it was, even at that moment, moist and rich in hazelnut flavour. I love that cookbook. In the end, it worked out really well for me, the flavours melted into each other and each bite was moist and had the sensational taste of 'I did it'. The flavours of black tea and hazelnut are both strong and I have a hunch there's something similar to them. I got the permission of making the cake again. Honoured, really, I'm honoured:D

I love how the decorations came out. The apples are really into tea, I'd say, and could make a great dessert by their own. Not peeling the hazelnuts was also a good choice, for this rustic appearance is perfect for an autumn-y cake. And if this cake doesn't say autumn then they're certainly is no autumn outside.

And I'd eat this cake every time somebody brings a store-bought obviously &#"@! vegetable fat cake with &#"@! vegetable fat cream to a family gathering. And I really don't care about good will if the cake is really lousy.
This cake isn't. Hah.

Rosewater and black tea granita

There's somebody out there who thinks like me.

Oooohyes.

If the love for tea meets the love for rosewater then finding a recipe for Rosewater tea granita means that the actual dish may as well be in the fridge already.


The original recipe suggests to serve the granita with baklava. I believe it would make a good refreshing accompaniment to this nut and phyllo cake that's sticky from amounts of syrup, but on a weekday evening a refreshing dessert on its own is good enough already.

My recipe is approximated for the metric system, the instructions are made a bit easier. If you have a good bowl that you can use in the freezer as well, use it in the beginning already.


Rosewater and black tea granita
(Epicurious)

1 l pure water
1 1/2 dl sugar
1 tsp rosewater
5 teabags of black tea
1 1/2 dl light cream/ half and half

1. Mix water, rosewater and sugar in a bowl/pitcher. Add teabags.
2. Cover with foil and leave the bowl on a sunny windowsill for 3 hours.
3. Discard teabags and add cream.
4. Pour the mixture into a dish that you can use in the freezer. When the mixture has frozen by a couple of cm from the edge, break the ice cristals with a fork and mix the whole thing well. Do this after every 30-60 minutes until all of it has turned into nice cristals.
5. Scrape granita from the bowl with a fork and serve immediately - that's the easy version. You can also break the ice cristals finer in a food processor and then serve or put the dessert back into the freezer for serving later.

The important thing in the making process is that you mix the granita thoroughly. Otherwise you'll have a watery upper layer. It is later great to discover from the bottom of the bowl that - oh - this stuff does have a taste, but discovering that is hardly the idea:) So - do mix it well. If you don't do so, you'll have to let the mixture melt and then start the freezing process again.

Tastes good! Imagine some outdoor event at winter where they serve people tea for free - it's always black tea and has a heap of sugar in it. The granita is sweet as well, but instead of being in the mittens the coldness is in your mouth and what's warm is not the tea, but rather the heart. Rosewater is not a taste in the foreground, so it's okay to add it even if you're not a fan - the taste of 'free tea' gets a nice 'expensive' nuance from it.
I once also tried mixing the granita with some flavoured yoghurt and got a good cool dessert.

For me the punch line right now is that an ice cream truck just drove past my house. Don't you just hate the tune?

Curd cheese mousse with black tea

Desserts flavoured with tea sound so exotic and exciting for me. Everything flavoured with tea, actually. I have made different experiments and in addition to my yoghurt sauce and green tea cake with cottage cheese I had another really successful one a few days ago.



Curd cheese mousse with black tea
(4 servings)

400 g curd cheese
2 eggyolks
2 eggwhites
2 dl milk
1 dl sugar
4 teabags
vanilla

1. Heat milk together with the teabags (use a teflon coated saucepan). When it has started to boil, remove it from the heat, cover and let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Discard the teabags, but try to press all the liquid you possibly can out of them.
3. Beat eggyolks in a bowl and add the mixture to them.
4. Pour the milk-eggyolk mixture back into the saucepan and heat (over medium heat) until it thickens, stirring to avoid clumps. Let the mixture cool down in the fridge while you prepare other ingredients.
5. Mix curd cheese with sugar and vanilla.
6. In a clean and dry bowl beat the eggwhites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.
7. Mix the tea mixture with curd cheese, then gently add the eggwhite foam (add half of it at first).

For serving I’d recommend fruit or berries and lots of them! The more fruit the better goes for all dishes, right? I like to mix the mousse with apple cubes as I have plenty of apples lying around in the kitchen. At last. One small apple diced and mixed with each serving – now that’s delicious. I believe I’d like it with ice cream too.




The mousse has quite a strong taste of black tea, it’s moderately sweet and has a really light foamy texture. At the same time it’s a real pleasure for all you curd cheese lovers out there (although it’s my modest opinion that Estonian curd cheese is the best in the whole world – it’s the one thing besides our rye bread that I just couldn’t live without if I moved abroad).

Have you got any favourite fabulous recipes using tea?
My next idea is to make a layered hazelnut cake with black tea egg-buttercream filling. Just hope I have any time to cook in September...

A sauce to fight the flu

Will it help? Will it? Probably not, but it's worth trying anyway:)

I've been caught into tea mania. Tea here, tea there, tea in the morning, tea in candies, tea in the afternoon, tea with vegetables, tea in the evening, tea in sauces, tea at night, tea in cakes, tea in preserves, tea with meat, tea on my mind, tea in my dreams, tea bloody everywhere. There's tea in this sauce and it's hidden well.
But you will notice.


Yoghurt sauce with onion, garlic and black tea

80 g onion, chopped
20 g garlic, chopped
2 tsp butter
4 dl very strong black tea
1-2 tbsp sugar
salt
1-2 dl unflavoured yoghurt

1. Melt butter in a saucepan, throw in onion and garlic, cover and cook for about 10 minutes until onion has turned transparent.
2. Add sugar and tea. Let the whole thing boil lively until there's not much liquid left (For me this time was about 8 minutes).
3. Now puree everything you have in the saucepan and let it cool a bit.
4. Add yoghurt to taste and also a tiiiny pinch of salt.

The taste has a lot of onion. And quite much black tea, although it's difficult to recognise that taste for someone who would never consider that option in a sauce. It's weird that my mom quite liked it and she doesn't even like onions (okay, except for in minced meat sauce)!
I ate the sauce with some smoked mackerel, but I can only imagine how well it could go with pork. Or as a dip for fresh vegetables.

And yet I like my tea green.

Green tea cake - not really a desperate cry for a healthier dessert

Isn't it just awful? I mean having green tea cake at home. There's this opportunity that I could decide having some slices of cake instead of a cup of hot tea. Oh I hate these I'm-really-healthy not-so-healthy-at-all dishes. It's like fitness cereals - the more you eat, the better for you. Well...no. More cake always equals more cake. This green tea cake although, if you wish, is a healthy cake. Say it to yourself until you believe it.


The cake is good served with raspberries or raspberry sauce when it's still warm. When the cake had cooled, I topped it with some unflavoured cream cheese and served with raspberries. The cream cheese could also be flavoured with lemon or lime. I used green tea with mint in the cake and it was a really good choice. I recommend it, I really do. Although other flavourings would be nice too. Jasmine green tea maybe?


Green tea cake with cottage cheese

170 g ground graham cracker cookies
2 tbsp melted butter
350 g cottage cheese
200 g sour cream
150 g sugar
4 eggs
vanilla
2 1/2 tsp ground green tea (with mint)
1 tbsp flour

1. Mix the ground cookies with butter and press the mixture otno the bottom of a greased springform pan.
2. Blend cottage cheese and sour cream so you have a really smooth mixture, add sugar and flour, mix in eggs one by one. Finally add vanilla and green tea. Pour the batter into the pan.
3. Bake at 170C for 50-60 minutes.
4. Serve warm or chilled.



The green tea flavour comes out just nicely and mint adds a refreshing accent. I'm sorry, but this cake does make me use the evil word interesting. It has an interesting taste. I imagine little round green tea cakes, topped with what looks like a small hill of raspberries. I guess drinking tea with it would be a sin already?