Cooking w/ Tea

This is a very easy recipe that my tea friends all loved. I used a combination of Revolution’s Lavender Earl Grey and Twinings Decaf Earl Grey since I was afraid the Lavender flavour (and caffeine) would be too strong. I also froze the log of dough for 1 week then defrosted before baking and it turned out fine!

Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies (from 5 Ingredient Fix on Food Network)

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons loose Earl Grey tea leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

Directions

In a food processor, pulse together the flour, tea, and salt, until the tea is just spotted throughout the flour. Add the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and butter. Pulse together just until a dough is formed. Place dough on a sheet of plastic wrap, and roll into a log, about 2 1/2-inches in diameter. Tightly twist each end of wrap, and chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Slice the log into 1/3-inch thick disks. Place on parchment or silpat lined baking sheets, 2 inches apart (2 probably needed depending on size of sheets). Bake until the edges are just brown, about 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks and cool to room temperature.

It’s not cooking perse, but 52teas has a recipe for tea flavored soda on their homepage. But IMO if you’re gonna load it w/ sugar, you might as well just pop a can of cola (again just my opinion lol- sweet tea drinkers will club me lol). I have a rootbeer flavored black tea (available in rooibos as well) that I LOVE doing this w/. I also make a ginger ginseng ginger ale. I also have a mojito blend I use, but I add something special.;) Here’s my recipe:

-amount of leaf desired for desired amout of soda doubled if you’re going to serve over regular iced cubes, extra if you’re going to make tea cubes (i.e. 1tsp/6oz, 4 servings= 4tsp)
-Just enough purifed water to cover the leaves to insure proper steeping
-carbonated water (enough that purified water+carbonated=desired total volume)

1. Heat purified water to desired temperature. 2. Put tea leaves in desired steeping vessle. 3. Poor heated water over the tea leaves and steep for the desired amount of time. 4. Decant and refrigerate. 5. Once the tea concentrate is chilled, add the carbonated water and refrigerate til ready to serve. Make tea cubes using purifed water if desired. Serve chilled, over tea cubes, or regular iced cubes.

Another beverage:
Dirty Indian Drinking Chocolate:

2/3 cup. milk
6 TB drinking chocolate mix (or whatever the package says for 2 servings)
1 vanilla bean
3g of your favorite tea (I like Adagio’s rum)
1.5g chai spice mix
1 single serving packet instant coffee, any flavor

Put tea and chai spice mix in a filter bag and tie off. Heat milk to just below scorching point and add the chai mixture. Steep 5 min, remove, and discard. Split the vanilla bean, scrape, and add the beans to the milk, add the chocolate mix and the instant coffee. MIX VERY WELL and pour into 2 cups.

Here is a great link for cooking with teas:

http://www.stashtea.com/recipes.htm#main

Here’s a cookie recipe I have bookmarked for when I get around to it:

http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/2008/02/jasmine-dragon-pearl-tea-cookies-recipe.html

Check out a timely post by TeaEqualsBliss

http://teaequalsbliss.blogspot.com/2009/12/cooking-with-tea.html

Here’s a recipe for tea and ginger simmered chickpeas: http://blog.mlive.com/great-tastes/2008/09/recipe_tea_and_ginger_simmered.html

And here’s a photo of what it looked like when I made it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlcastle/3946689894/

It didn’t have a super-strong tea flavor but was pretty good!

If you go to rishi-tea.com and type “recipe” in the search box, they have recipes for 11 of their teas.

This Matcha Biscotti with Crystalized Ginger looks good. The recipe uses a matcha mix with sweetener and milk powder in it already though: http://www.sprinklebakes.com/2010/01/round-4-cookie-challenge-matcha.html