Nice cuppa tea and a sit down

As soon as I received my fabulous Teacupcake silicone moulds I knew that I had to make some tea based cupcakes in them! At first I toyed with matcha cupcakes, but as these moulds screamed out 'afternoon tea' and 'English-ness' to me I decided to go with the Earl Grey cupcakes from my Primrose Bakery book.

The recipe was fairly easy to make and the only extra ingredients I had to buy were Earl Grey teabags (I'm more of a Twinnings English Breakfast gal), and some almond extract, which was a bit costly, but was an optional ingredient. I'm glad I bought it, it added a lovely aroma and flavour to the cake.

I halved the mixture and ended up with four teacups and cupcake in a normal cupcake cake. I sat the moulds in a pyrex dish lid so they were easy to get in and out of the oven and helped them retain their shape slightly.



The cupcakes were topped, as suggested, with vanilla frosting (again I halved the recipe), coloured purple with Sugarflair grape violet paste colour. After tweeting about how best to get a nice lilac colour I opted for paste and was lucky enough to find it quite centrally in Islington at the Make Lounge. I also picked up a large piping star and as you can see tried my hand at piping and I am quite proud of how cute they came out for my first proper try at piping. I used some disposable piping bags from Lakeland and I highly recommend them - even I managed to use them without making a mess.

The cupcakes tasted delicious - a hint of flowery Earl Grey-ness to the lovely moist cupcake and as usual the Primrose frosting was very moreish! I'd definitely recommend making them and would make them again. Next time its Matcha cupcakes in the teacups!

Oh, and with disposable bags you can pipe the leftover frosting straight into your mouth when you're finished piping :)

"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And whoever this "Earl Grey" fellow is, I'd like to have a word with him... " Captain Picard, Star Trek