Sep 29 2013

Recipe: White Chocolate Blueberry Scones

Author: Jenna

Yes, I realize that your favorite source for recipes, facts about afternoon tea, and tea room reviews seemingly went missing for a few weeks. I mean, not even a scone recipe? That’s like borderline as severe as the apocalypse. But as much as I apologize, I also promise that I had a good reason.

white chocolate blueberry scones

white chocolate blueberry scones

See, in addition to my job as the household’s resident Anglophile and baker, I am also an actress. Well, aspiring actress who every time she says aspiring before actress is corrected by people around her because vocabulary and commitment is very important in the industry. So I’m an actress. And pursuing acting as a career can get very time consuming, particularly when you have to commute into Hollywood for 16 straight days. Yeah that happened. It also makes one not really feel like turning on an oven. Or blogging. Or doing anything but sleeping when at home.

But I was thinking about you the whole time and feeling insanely guilty for not posting. So to make it up to you, I am posting my favorite scone recipe thusfar. 

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Sep 13 2013

Tea Cakes vs. Coffee Cakes

Author: Jenna

Now that we know what teacake is, can we figure out coffee cake? As in what makes the two so different? Now don’t give me the rote answer of you serve teacake with tea and coffee cake with coffee.  We don’t like simple here, we have to go deep! So begins the battle of coffee cake versus teacake!

 

#1 Coffee cake is one kind fits all.

As we learned last week, a teacake can actually be one of three or four different foodstuffs: a cookie, a spice or sponge cake, a yeast bread, or a soda bread. But a coffee cake is always a cake. Sure it might have a crumble topping or a cinnamon swirl (drooling yet?) or added flavorings but it is always in cake form.

 

#2 Shape matters.

Even when a teacake is a cake, it usually is in a circular shape unless it was baked as a loaf cake. Coffee cakes come in squares, rectangles, bundts, circles, basically whatever shape pan the baker had available.

 

#3 Coffee has coffee but tea has no tea.

Coffee cakes can also get their name from being made with coffee, but teacakes aren’t made with tea (though you can make a teacake that is tea flavored, it is not a common thing).  Coffee isn’t in the batter of every coffee cake, however it is common enough that it might be worth asking the baker if they use coffee in their recipe. I know I’ve made a coffee cake with coffee granules in the cocoa cinnamon streusel.

 

#4 One is served at Starbucks and other coffee/tea shops. One is served at tearooms and teahouses.

Guess which is which? Coffee cakes are more likely to be sold in local or chain coffee shops, the kind you swing by for that convenient breakfast. I order tea at Starbucks (their Earl Grey is surprisingly good) but even if they serve tea I have never seen a teacake at a coffee shop. Now on the flip side, I have only ever seen any of the forms of teacakes at tearooms and teahouses. I’ve never seen a coffee cake at one of those, so maybe the makers of teacakes and coffeecakes agreed to keep some distance between them.

 

#5 Teacakes are world travelers.

Teacakes—in any of the forms we learned about—are seen in the UK, North America, Latin America, India, Australia, Sweden…basically they are well traveled and well known. Coffee cake seems to be a purely American baked good, only really seen outside the US in American style bakeries that happen to have made their way abroad.

 

Believe it or not, I’m not going to give an answer to which is better than the other, because I love both coffee cakes and teacakes of all sorts. But I definitely don’t believe that you can only have coffee cake when drinking coffee and teacakes when you are drinking tea. You can have anything when you’re drinking tea. Why should we neglect the poor yet delicious coffee cake?

Sep 08 2013

Recipe: Triple Berry Scones

Author: Jenna

If two is better than one, than three is better than two, right? Well that answer is a resounding yes when berries are involved, that much I know! Scones with one berry (with me it’s usually strawberry)? Awesome. Scones with two berries? Amazing. But scones with three berries? Transcendent!

I’ll be honest, I really struggled with the desire to turn these into Quadruple Berry Scones. But that just seemed like a slippery slope to Bazillion Berry Scones or Scone Berries where the dough became more berry than scone. Though would that really have been a bad thing? It’d certainly make getting one of your five a day easier if all you had to do was eat a scone. Eat five scones (so not hard to do) and you’re all set for twenty four hours.

Triple Berry Scones

Triple Berry Scones

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Sep 06 2013

Tea Cakes

Author: Jenna

A couple of the tea houses I’ve reviewed serve a slice of tea cake with their scone course, and it got me thinking (as so many things do) about what exactly is a tea cake. Since it’s a cake and a lot of the mini desserts served at tearooms are little cakes, why is it served in the scone course and not the dessert course? Burning questions!

Well I did some digging. Turns out the answer is as simple as you’d think!

 

Are they cakes?

Tea cake as a cake (no it's not the scone or the muffin)

Tea cake as a cake (no it’s not the scone or the muffin)

In some parts of the world, yes. When a tea cake is literally a small slice of cake (typical of Australian, North America, and India), it is usually a pound, heavy sponge, or spice cake.  Only a single layer, these tea cakes are not frosted, but instead are topped with a dusting of powdered sugar or a light glaze. The spice cake is more common in North America, while the heavy sponge variety is found in Australia or India. When a tea cake is basically a pound cake, it’s just a tearoom’s variation on the slightly more traditional cake served. Tea cakes—when they are cakes—can also contain fruits such as cranberries, blueberries, or apricots.

 

Are they bread?

In some parts of the world, yes. A tea cake is more akin to a bread when served in the United Kingdom. A small, sweet, yeast-based bun often containing dried fruit, a tea cake is typically split, toasted, and buttered to be served with tea. The most famous tea cake is served in Bath, England and is known as a Sally Lunn. Top it with cinnamon butter and be prepared to die from deliciousness overdose.

Bread-like tea cakes are also served in Sweden where they are a sweetened wheat soda bread served with butter and jam.

 

Are they cookies?

Tea cakes as a cookie (photo credit foodsofourlives.com)

Tea cakes as a cookie (photo credit foodsofourlives.com)

In some parts of the world, yes.  Cookie tea cakes are dense cookies made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, milk, and additional flavorings.  Common flavors are nut-based like almond or hazelnut.  They are very dense and crumbly, and can be quite messy as they are usually coated in a layer of powdered sugar.  When they first crumbed into the world, they were an accompaniment to bitter teas; the sugar both in the cookie and the coating were meant to balance the astringency from black tea.

Now a cookie tea cake by any other name is still a cookie tea cake, but they are also commonly known as Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cakes/cookies, polvornes, or butterballs.

 

Hmmm…with all these different answers for “what is a tea cake” I may have to do a recipe series for you so you can try them all!

Sep 01 2013

Recipe: Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Author: Jenna

So just in case you couldn’t tell from these, and these, I love strawberries. I really love all berries, but strawberries are my favorite. And as strawberry season begins to come to a close and I start to tear up at the prospect of months and months without this delicious berry, I decided to make another few recipes to get our final strawberry fix. Best part, scones can freeze so if you hurry up and make the scones now, you can enjoy them in the fall when everyone else is eating apples. You’ll be eating strawberry scones and gloating to yourself (not out loud since that’s not nice after all, but inside is totally okay!).

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

When I went to my first afternoon tea as a little girl, one of the finger sandwiches served was a strawberry cream cheese sandwich, and since it was pink and I adored pink I had to love it. Ever since, strawberry cream cheese has become one of those things I buy at the store with excitement but then rarely get around to using because I forget to buy bagels. Now, I’ll never have wasted strawberry cream cheese again because I can always make these scones! They are sooooo creamy and moist that I can’t put enough “ooooo” at the end of the “so” to get my point across. Think similar to the scones that use mascarpone cheese like Vanilla Dream scones or the Strawberry Vanilla scones that were my last strawberry creation.Yeah, they rival that level of creamy, mouth-meltingness.

The cream cheese doesn’t overwhelm the strawberries, but instead just adds a delightfully subtle tang and lots of cream. Did I mention they were creamy? Okay good.

But the best part about these scones (besides the giant chunks of strawberries) is the color…BRIGHT PINK!!! Five-year-old Jenna is dancing around in her twirly dresses with joy. These are the perfect scones for a little girl’s afternoon tea party, baby girl baby shower, or just a day that needs a little pink thrown in.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

strawberry cream cheese scones

ingredients

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 50 g ultrafine baking sugar
  • 1 cup chopped strawberries
  • 200 g strawberry cream cheese
  • up to 6 tbsp water as needed

directions

Preheat oven to 220°C (450°F). Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, strawberries, and cream cheese. Rub together the ingredients until evenly clumped. Add the water a little bit at a time and then knead into the dough until smooth. Do not overwork, but you don’t need to be as overly concerned with being delicate as you do with cream scones.
Place dough on a very floured surface and knead a few more times. Pat out to 1 cm thick. Cut 5 cm rounds from the dough with biscuit cutter and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Reform and continue until there is no more dough.Bake for 8-10 minutes (8) until lightly browned and cooked through.
Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Ooooo, so many fun ideas: cut into flowers or hearts, top with more strawberries, top with a vanilla or lemon glaze….so those might not be traditional (and by traditional I mean British) scone things to do, but when strawberries are involved tradition can go out the window.

Aug 25 2013

Recipe: Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

Author: Jenna

I love peanut butter. Like LOVE IT. So much so that I could probably live off it. In fact if you saw my pantry, you’d probably think that I do. There’s crunchy peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, white chocolate peanut butter, cinnamon raisin peanut butter, almond butter (yes I know that doesn’t technically count but it’s still fantastic and obsessive), dark chocolate peanut butter, honey peanut butter, banana nut peanut butter, powdered peanut butter, and there may or may not be even more jars of the same varieties because I’m so afraid to run out of peanut butter that I buy extra jars unnecessarily.

And by may or may not, I totally mean there is. What? I eat it with practically everything! It’s delicious!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

So it was a no-brainer that peanut butter scones, and possibly a whole host of peanut butter based scones, would eventually show up on this site. Hey, if I can make scones out of mascarpone cheese, why not peanut butter? Okay those have nothing to compare each other to and I just wanted to justify my peanut butter obsession.

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Aug 23 2013

What Is Pu-erh?

Author: Jenna
a pu-erh brick

a pu-erh brick

Tea aficionados have been talking about pu-erh more and more lately. It goes by many names, much like a rose, such as the diet tea or the anti-aging tea. Great, right? Drink a certain kind of tea and you’ll not only stay thin but you’ll stay young forever. Could this tea be the elixir of the fountain of youth?! Let’s examine, shall we?

 

Processing Pu-Erh

Pu-erh is grown in the Yunnan province of China. The tea leaves are piled, dampened, and turned to ensure even fermentation (a lovely and appetizing article compared this process to composting). After about six months to a year, the tea is considered ripened and then dried, weighed, and steamed to prepare it for pressing.

The pressing and aging are the two signature processing elements in pu-erh. The tea is pressed into a brick and aged much like whiskey or Scotch. After years of aging, it is finally ready to enter the market and your teacup.

 

Preparing Pu-Erh for Drinking

It is possible to buy pu-erh in a loose leaf form (most tearooms that offer pu-erh have loose leaf pu-erh for ease of brewing), but if yours is still in its brick, simply flake off or cut off pieces of the cake in a vertical direction. Technically pu-erh should be brewed at 95°F for 30 seconds for a first brewing and reaching up to 10 minutes for a subsequent brewing, but I’ve brewed mine at 205° for two minutes and it has been perfect.

I treat it much like a black tea. The pu-erh I’ve been drinking is flavored with caramel and vanilla and is strong but decadent with a splash of milk and sugar.

 

Health Benefits

There hasn’t been any studies done in humans yet, but scientific studies with animals have shown a decrease in body weight following consistent pu-erh consumption. Liver health improved and cholesterol lowered. Overall body fat composition lowered as well, which is why pu-erh is called the slimming tea. The Chinese believe that pu-erh can also help cure a hangover by invigorating the spleen. I think we all need invigorated spleens so we should all drink pu-erh.

Aug 18 2013

Recipe: Spiced Peach Scones

Author: Jenna

Well, my friends, today is the last peach recipe in my short series of peach scones. Are you sad too? I wish sometimes that all fruit was available ripe and perfect year round so that if I had a hankering for–let’s say–peaches in winter because my Spiced Peach scones would be the perfect holiday baked good, I could find peaches to make them as tasty in December as they would be in the height of peach season.

The agricultural world is so not fair.

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Then again, if we had the full spectrum of fruit available year round, maybe we wouldn’t appreciate the excitement and delight of each fruit coming into season. Would I cherish each carton of fresh strawberries if they were always as delicious as they are in the blush of spring? Maybe not. Maybe seasonal produce is nature’s way of giving us something to look forward too (though it definitely stinks that all my favorite fruits are spring and early summer fruits).

This recipe was a challenge for me because I had nothing to base it on. Even some recipes that I create are based in part on recipes in books, like the peach basil ones of last week were adapted from a strawberry lavender scone I found somewhere else. But none of the recipes I have bookmarked or saved used compote as its primary source of liquid. I really was flying blind here.

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

I wanted to try cooking the fruit before incorporating it into the scone, so I decided to make a heated mixture of those fresh peaches we’ve been working with and some spices. The only problem is that I had no idea how to do it! I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as putting peaches in a saute pan and just letting them heat up. Yet I still had never made a compote before so was clueless as to how much sugar to add to the peaches, when to boil versus simmer, and how long it would take.

After some research and a little bit of math (real world application!) I attempted to make a spiced peach compote. It was so easy, I wondered why I haven’t been making fruit compotes my whole life. I feel like a whole new world of oatmeal toppings and desserts was just shown to me. Seriously, compotes are now a revelation for me: a thick, spiced syrup of gooey ripe peaches and melted sugar…are you drooling yet? You better be peeling those peaches at least!

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Probably because the main liquid here is a thick syrup, these scones are very dense unlike the majority of scones I make. The first time I made these I also overworked the dough, and I think it was because I didn’t add enough other liquid to incorporate the ingredients without kneading too much. Lesson to all scone makers: it is more important to lightly handle the dough than using less flour on your workspace or having less cleanup. Add more liquid to the dough so you have to knead it less. You won’t regret it.

The peaches are wonderfully soft and sweet with the spices mulling about them. Your kitchen will smell incredible, making these not only one of the best tasting scones you’ll ever make, but also one of the best air fresheners you ever used. More incentive to make multiple batches!

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Ingredients for Compote

  • 10 ounces chopped peeled peaches
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Ingredients for Scones

  • 200 g all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 50 g ultrafine sugar
  • Compote
  • 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Making the Compote
Put peaches in a small saucepan. Add sugar, stirring to coat completely. Turn stove to medium heat.
As the sugar dissolves, the peaches will release a lot of liquid. Bring this liquid to a boil. Add nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. Stir well. Once mixture is boiling, leave over heat for 4 minutes to reduce liquid, stirring frequently.
Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour into a glass bowl and allow to cool to room temperature. Bask in its incredible smell. Resist urge to grab a spoon and dig into the compote. Do not pour over vanilla ice cream. Do not spoon over oatmeal. Do not do anything with it but let it cool.
Making the Scones
Preheat oven to 450°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Make sure everything is well mixed.
Add the COOLED compote (I didn’t let mine cool enough and my hands were definitely heating up when incorporating it to the dry ingredients). Once fully incorporated, add whipping cream one tablespoon at a time until dough has formed and is very moist. DO NOT OVERWORK THE DOUGH. The compote already adds a heavier element to the dough so it will be denser than most scones, but overworking it will result is very tough scones. And that would be no bueno.
Turn out onto a floured surface and pat down to desired thickness (1 cm). Cut out (5 cm) rounds and place on baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes or until they are puffy and beginning to turn golden. Remove to a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.
Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Yes these are good with clotted cream :)

Aug 16 2013

And the Water Was Hot, Hot, Hot

Author: Jenna

The process of brewing tea seems so simple: boil water, pour over tea, steep, pour out and enjoy. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is so much more than that! There is practically an art form to brewing the perfect cup of tea, and everyone has his or her own methods. We’ve been over some of them like teabags or loose leaf, steep and strain or steep and remove, milk first or last, milk at all…so let’s go one step further and talk about water.

Tea kettle with boiling water; steam against a black background.

You can’t have tea without water. Try it; I dare you (okay before you fire back at me I am excluding milk teas from this dare). Water is essential to tea! Tea is basically flavored water after all. Delicious, soothing, varied, and even healthier water but water nonetheless.

However water can also ruin your tea. Yes, by steeping your chosen tea in a water bath of uncoordinatedly high temperatures, you can essentially burn the tea leaves and be left with a bitter cup of tea that you won’t discard because that would just be tragic but you certainly won’t enjoy to its fullest. It may even result in your not liking tea, which would be even more tragic than you pouring tea down the drain!

550px-Make-a-Water-Still-Step-4

So let’s quickly go over the proper water temperature and brewing time for each type of tea. Sounds good?

Black Tea: Because black tea is so robust and is the most oxidized of the teas, you can actually brew this one in boiling water for about 3 minutes. Try not to pass 5 minutes or you will be past the bitter point of return (I’m a little punny while writing this, my sincere apologies).

Oolong Tea: Brew between 185-205°F for about 5 minutes. Basically allow the water to boil and then cool for 30ish seconds before brewing.

Green Tea: As we move further down the oxidized ladder, the teas should be brewed at lower temperatures. Green tea is optimal at 150°F for only 2-3 minutes. Green tea becomes bitter very quickly so keep an eye on it!

White Tea: Oddly, this tea can be brewed a little warmer than green tea at 180°F for about 4-6 minutes. Why odd? White tea is a gentler tea than green tea so you’d expect to coddle it a bit more, but there needs to be an exception to every rule I suppose.

Rooibos: Note that I didn’t label it rooibos tea because technically it’s a tisane and we are all about technicality today! This South African tea can handle it’s stuff; feel free to brew it with boiling water for longer than 5 minutes. It probably won’t get bitter.

Herbals and Tisanes: The rest of the not-teas can be brewed at boiling water for 5 minutes as well, but as there are no hard and fast rules about tisanes, feel free to experiment to your taste.

 

Now you know, now there are no excuses, and now you are going to completely disregard these guidelines because who wants to use a thermometer when preparing a kettle?

Aug 11 2013

Recipe: Peach Basil Scones

Author: Jenna

Unsurprisingly, the basil in my mom’s backyard is still growing like a weed. A ridiculously pleasant smelling, sweet tasting, very welcome weed, but a week nonetheless. She is almost desperate to find uses for it (okay not that desperate, caprese salads are a frequent occurrence at mealtimes) so I volunteered to add my mom’s basil to my dad’s peaches in my scones. See how scone making can become a family affair?

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

Peach and basil have an affinity for each other; in fact, basil is like vanilla in that it has an affinity with almost all fruit. I would say basil is like the social butterfly of herbs. It really is friends with everyone and is very inclusive. Our kindergarteners would do well to learn from basil.

The best way to check if you used enough basil in a recipe is the good old-fashioned smell test. Once the basil is all stirred in, sniff the flour (be careful not to snort up the flour as I’m sure that would be unpleasant and nasty) and use your judgment. Can you smell the basil, or do you have to struggle to get a whiff? If it isn’t a clear smell, add a little bit more. Don’t worry, it mellows as it is heated so it won’t overwhelm your little peaches.

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

In fact, the basil is almost an aftertaste. Think about how in wines, you describe the end of the taste as the “finish”…these scones have a basil finish. Unless of course you happen upon a large piece of basil in a single bite and then that bit is going to be basil forward. These also work well with clotted cream, like most scones with two or less flavors, but the heavy cream runs a risk of taking over the light and airy texture of the scone.

These puff up nice and high, and their flavor follows in its perkiness. Peach basil scones truly are the summery butterflies of scones!

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp ultra fine sugar
  • 1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup chopped fresh peaches
  • 1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh basil, or to scent
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 450°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

 In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Add the peaches and the basil (you may need to add more basil depending on how strong your leaves are). Toss to combine.
Add whipping cream and begin to knead together until dough forms. If mixture is too dry, add one tablespoon of cream at a time. Turn out onto a floured work surface.
Roll or pat out dough to desired thickness (1 cm) and then cut out scones with a scone cutter (5 cm). Place on baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until scones have puffed up and the edges are golden brown. Turn out immediately onto a wire rack to cool.

 

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones