Baking with Typhoo

Consider for a moment, if you will, The Great British Bake Off.

It’s about as British as it comes; it has bunting, it has melodic jaunty music, it has seaside double entendre puns, it has a marquee, it has lots of people competing in a terribly nice, friendly fashion… In short, it’s about as British as a cup of tea. Which is probably why we love it so much.

We Brits punctuate our lives with tea. There are particularly memorable cups of tea that are imprinted on our minds forever. One I’ll never forget was the first post giving birth to my eldest son. After 24 hours in labour all I wanted was a really good, scorching hot cup of tea. And some toast. And maybe some sleep. I got two out of three.

One of my favourite parts of the day is when my husband comes home from work and we share a cup of Typhoo tea before putting the kids to bed. We usually manage about 5 minutes together to sit and get a quick debrief of our respective days before we’re back into the hubbub of family life. But those 5 minutes are golden. They re-set the balance before we tackle the witching hour that is bedtime. Great moments, great brew, always Typhoo!

And what’s the only thing that’s better than a good cup of tea? Why tea and cake of course! And for me, adding the flavour of a rich and full bodied tea to the bake, makes for tea and cake heaven.

These two bakes are both infused with my favourite tea, Typhoo, which is just perfect for baking with. It’s rich in flavour without being too strong in tannin and has a full bodied depth of flavour that means you really don’t need to use much to get a subtle tea tang to your bakes.

And tea goes surprisingly well with lots of flavours. This week I’ve combined Typhoo tea with peach, a little hint of ginger and white chocolate to create a tray bake, plus I’ve made a cute milk, tea and honey teacup cake with cinnamon icing. I hope these bakes inspire you to re-create them, perhaps with your own twist?

Peach, tea and white chocolate traybake

Makes 12 squares

Ingredients:

1 Typhoo tea bag
50mls vegetable oil
200g unsalted butter, melted (plus extra for greasing the tin)
250g caster sugar
3 large eggs
235g self-raising flour
1 tsp ground ginger
15 slices of tinned peaches (about half a 410g tin, drained)
100g white chocolate, melted
10mls vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Break open the Typhoo teabag and sprinkle into a small saucepan.

Add the oil and butter and heat on the stove for about a minute over a low heat until the butter had melted. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse.

In the meantime prepare a 22cm x 22cm tray bake tin by greasing with a little butter and lining with non-stick baking parchment. Mix together the tea, oil and melted butter mixture, caster sugar, eggs, flour and ginger until the batter is really smooth.

Place the peach slices on top of the sponge and bake for 35 – 40 minutes until golden on the top and a skewer comes out of the centre of the tray bake clean.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Once the cake is cool, mix together the melted white chocolate with the vegetable oil and drizzle over the cake. Leave to set and slice into squares to serve with a delicious cup of Typhoo tea.

NB: This cake is delicious served warm as pudding with ice-cream or custard.

Milk, tea and honey teacup cake

Makes 3 average tea cups

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 Typhoo tea bag
100mls milk
85g salted butter at room temperature, plus a little extra for greasing
50g castor sugar
1 large egg
100g plain flour
35g ground almonds
1/2 tsp baking powder
50g honey + 3 tsp for soaking the warm cake with

For the cinnamon honey icing:

210g icing sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
15g salted butter
45g honey
20mls cold water

Before you start, please do check your tea cups are safe to bake in the oven; if they are dishwasher safe then it’s likely they are, but basically, don’t use Granny’s best china.

Warm the milk on the stove in a small pan over a low heat until just starting to bubble at the edges.

Add the Typhoo teabag, stir, then transfer to a jug and cool in the fridge (with the teabag still in).

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Grease the tea cups with a little softened butter and place on a baking tray.

Beat the butter and sugar together using a wooden spoon or electric mixer until light and fluffy.

Add the egg, dribble by dribble, beating well as you go.

Mix together the flour, ground almonds and baking powder and set aside.

Remove the milk from the fridge, discard the Typhoo teabag, (being sure to squeeze it beforehand), add 50g honey and stir well.

Beat half of the flour mixture into the creamed butter, then half the honeyed tea-milk. Beat again and repeat until all the ingredients are used up. (NB: The mixture will look a little grainy from the almonds).

Divide equally between the prepared teacups, being careful that the batter comes no higher than two thirds up the sides.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes on a baking tray (the deeper the cup the longer it will take to bake) until a skewer comes out of the centre of the cakes clean.

Whilst still warm, brush with 1 teaspoon of honey per cake and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Make the cinnamon icing by mixing all the ingredients together and then using to flood the top of each completely cool cupcake. (If the cakes have peaked too much and threaten to poke through, simply slice the tops off and eat them as a chef’s perk).