Chamomile Tea Cake with Strawberry Icing (Slice of Tea Cake & A Cuppa Tea)
He needs to stop. I would like to dive into Eric Kim’s cookbook, Korean-American but have not been able to and it is all his FAULT. Yep, the blame lies squarely on his shoulders.
Eric is on staff at the NYT Cooking. I’m not sure what his obligation is to the venerable paper, a column every week, every couple of days. Don’t know. What I do know is he keeps coming up with tasty recipes for the NYT that prevent me from cracking open his book.
Sheesh
So I am asking Eric to please STOP, or at least, slow down with the content for NYT cooking so I can finally try the recipes in your beautiful book. I’ve only had time to read the stories, which I love, while making your recipes in the NYT.
I’m kidding of course (am I?). His recent contribution to NYT was a Chamomile Tea Cake with Strawberry Icing. It looked luscious and sounded delightful …so of course, I made it. His cookbook, Korean-American, will just have to wait a little longer. Although, in all fairness, many of the recipes printed in the NYT are also in his wonderful book.
But Not This Cake
I adore this cake and I wasn’t sure I was going to. First, I’ve never had a cup of Chamomile Tea in my life. I’m Asian…it’s Oolong, Jasmine, Roasted Barley, Green Tea…no herbal teas in my house. My only non-Asian Tea is Lipton”s Black Tea (I’m not even sure I would call it non-Asian, lol) and that’s to make Hong Kong-style Milk Tea. But the cake looked luscious, very maker-friendly and is an Eric creation, so my knee-jerk reaction after seeing the recipe was to pull out my loaf pan.
A Cup of Tea
This cake can be made by hand, yep, you don’t need to drag out that 50-pound mixer BUT I was lazy so I pulled mine out. This makes the cake incredibly easy to make. The key is to not overmix to avoid toughening the cake…this is the universal problem when using your mixer, too much muscle.
I bought a box of Chamomile teabags, and the first thing I did was make a cup of tea and try it. It was soothing, mild, and refreshing…in other words, perfect for this cake.
Chamomile Tea swimming in a butter bath, the life. The tea is infused in every step of this cake, the butter, and the milk, so the flavor of the tea really shines. I might try it with different teas in the future, like Jasmine, my favorite.
Back to Cake by the Machine. The butter will solidify a bit as it sits with the tea. Beat the butter, sugar, and salt until light and creamy, about 1 minute on medium speed. It will be light in color and fuller in volume, add your eggs one at a time. The eggs should be at room temperature which helps minimize curdling or breaking of the batter when liquid is added to your fat mixture.
Deb Tip-when adding zest to a recipe. I reserve a couple of tablespoons of sugar from the recipe and run that with the zest in a mini-food processor, then add it back to the original sugar. No big pieces of zest and the citrus flavor is well distributed. That’s just me though.
You can add your zest, baking powder, and vanilla as listed in the recipe. The recipe calls for adding vanilla, and leavening agent into the creamed mixture before adding the flour. This works since you haven’t added the flour yet, no worries about overmixing and developing gluten.
Flour Power
First, add half the flour, mix on medium just until the flour disappears, then add the milk, mixing just to incorporate. Finally, add the remaining flour and mix at medium speed. Mix until you don’t see any streaks of flour, it should look cohesive. Avoid overbeating which can lead to a tough cake (gluten development) did I already mention that, lol.
The Icing On the Cake
The icing is key. It adds a bit of sweetness and a textural complement to the cake. I saw a few complaints that the cake was overly sweet. I didn’t think so although I did use freeze-dried raspberries instead of strawberries which have a bit more tartness. The raspberries made a vibrant garnet-hued icing that was very eye-catching.
The weight to volume of freeze-dried fruit was off, possibly due to humidity. I used the half-cup volume measurement, you can adjust the taste and color to your liking.
Chamomile Tea Cake With Strawberry Icing
Equipment
- 1 9x5 loaf pan
Ingredients
- Nonstick cooking spray To prep loaf pan
Steep 2 Tea Blends: butter + tea and milk + tea and set aside
- 2 tablespoons (6 grams) chamomile tea, divided in half approximately 4 to 6 tea bags, crushed fine if coarse
- 1⁄2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (240 milliliters) whole milk
Cream Tea + Butter Mixture
- 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
Add to Creamed Tea-Butter Mixture
- 1 tbsp lemon zest (original recipe calls for zest of 1 large lemon) You can increase or decrease zest to your taste or use combination of orange and lemon zest 1.5 teaspoons of each. Keep the lemon, yiu will use the juice in the icing
- 1⁄2 teaspoon Morton's coarse kosher salt or increase to 3/4 tsp if using Diamond Kosher Salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1⁄2 cups (192 grams) all-purpose flour
Icing
- 2 tbsp Lemon juice from zested lemon
- 1 cup (124 grams) confectioners’ sugar
- 1⁄2 cup (8 grams) freeze-dried strawberries
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat (or microwave until melted). Add 1 tablespoon chamomile to a large mixing bowl. Pour the hot melted butter over the chamomile and stir. Set aside to steep and cool completely, about 1 hour.
- Use the same saucepan (without washing it out) to bring the milk to a simmer over medium-high heat, keeping watch so it doesn’t boil over. Remove from the heat, and stir the remaining 1 tablespoon chamomile into the hot milk. Set aside to cool
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with the nonstick cooking spray and line with parchment paper so the long sides of the pan have a couple of inches of overhang to make lifting the finished cake out easier.
- Add the sugar and salt to the bowl with the butter, and whisk until smooth and thick, about 1 minute. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, vigorously whisking to combine after each addition. Zest the lemon into the bowl; add the baking powder and vanilla, and whisk until incorporated. Add the flour and stream in the milk mixture while whisking continuously until no streaks of flour remain.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake until a skewer or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean (a few crumbs are OK, but you should see no wet batter), 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 30 minutes.
- While the cake cools, make the icing: Into a medium bowl, squeeze 2 tablespoons juice from the zested lemon, then add the confectioners’ sugar. Place the dehydrated strawberries in a fine-mesh sieve set over the bowl and, using your fingers, crush the brittle berries and press the red-pink powder through the sieve and into the sugar. (The more you do this, the redder your icing will be.) Whisk until smooth.
- If needed, run a knife along the edges of the cake to release it from the pan. Holding the 2 sides of overhanging parchment, lift the cake out and place it on a plate, cake stand or cutting board. Discard the parchment. Pour the icing over the cake, using a spoon to push the icing to the edges of the cake to encourage the icing to drip down the sides dramatically. Cool the cake completely and let the icing set.
