Cooking & baking with tea?

[Jackie]

Ladies & gents, how versed are you in cooking and baking with tea? I know @jopj is, she writes a “Cooking with Tea” blog on Tea Trade, which though not continuously updated, is worth checking out for some nice and easy recipes. 

If you’ve experimented with tea in culinary creations, did you use the steeped brew, or the leaves? If you’ve never tried, are you tempted at all?

I’ve cooked with tea, but not baked much. Probably because most baking seems to involve matcha, and I don’t like matcha. I guess it’s popularity in recipes is due to its distinct color.  I’ve made a few batches of cookies with Earl Grey tea, they turned out pretty nice.

Anyway, have come across some foodie blog pics recently, that were so enticing, it made me think about all this. 

[Anonymous]

I haven’t done too much cooking with tea but I definitely plan on doing so in the future.  So far its pretty much just been cocktails, matcha cookies, lavender earl grey cookies, tea bread, and using lapsang souchong instead of liquid smoke.  I will definitely have to check out that cooking with tea blog. 

[Jackie]

Sounds pretty delicious @butikiteas – any special websites or recipes you can recommend? Baked an excellent loaf of wholewheat bread yesterday, but no tea in it. I should really see what it’d be like to substitute the warm water in the recipe for warm tea…

[ThePurrfectCup]

Here’s a link to a recipe for Potato Soup using Lapsang Souchong tea! 

[Anonymous]

The cocktails I pretty much just did a lot of experimenting to come up with stuff.  My friend and I tried to come up with a bunch of cocktails for our friend’s bachelorette party but the only one I remember from that night was a coconut rooibos and rum drink.  That was pretty tasty.  Another night I came up with a tasty Strawberry TeaTini: http://butikiteas.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-10-26T21:14:00-04:00&max-results=7.

The matcha cookies I made came from your recipe but modified.  🙂

The Lavender Earl Grey cookies came from a modified version of “Lavender Tea Cookies” from “The Vegan Table”.  Instead of just adding chopped up lavender I also added chopped up earl grey leaves too.  I thought they were pretty yummy.

Unfortunately, the tea bread was not so great.  I tried to modify this beer bread recipe that I use and it didn’t work out but I still need to do some more experimenting. 

For liquid smoke I used lapsang souchong and made a very concentrated tea. 

Courtney-That recipe looks really easy and tasty (and easy for me to vegan-ize).  Thanks for posting that! 🙂 

[Anonymous]

Green Tea, Apple & Honey Sorbet

• 100g Loose Green Tea infused with a cup of 85 Degrees Celsius water for 2-3mins, strained
• 8 Granny Smith Apples, cored
• 2 tbsp Honey
• 300g Sugar
• 800ml Water
• 2 tbsp Liquid Glucose

1. Make a sugar syrup with the sugar and water, then add the glucose and honey.
2. Puree apples with skins on, strain and remove the solids but keep the liquid.
3. Add the apple juice to the sugar syrup, add a few drops of green food colouring and place liquid in the fridge. When chilled, churn in an ice-cream machine as per it’s instructions.
4. Serve

[liberteas]

I have not done a lot of baking with tea – although I have incorporated some matcha in some butter cookies that I’ve made.  I do use it in cooking though – Last year for thanksgiving I brined my turkey in a salty Oolong and spice brine, and it turned out phenomenal.  I don’t really have a recipe for this … I just kind of winged it. 

[Anonymous]

* all those recipes sounds amazing.  i am really going to try some of these.   @liberteas, i would like to try the turkey, what kind of Oolong did you use and just random spices?  i was going to try a brisket cooked in a lapsang as @Butiki teas mentioned.  we will see how it turns out!  Thanks for all the great ideas!

[Anonymous]

A great way to use tea in cooking is simply replace the water component of a standard recipe with tea…

Maris Corn
& Capsicum Gazpacho with Natural Ceylon Ginger Tea

Ingredients:

• 1 heaped teaspoon
  (200ml hot water) of t-Series Natural Ceylon Ginger Tea (or a high grown ceylon tea with a teaspoon of finely chopped ginger infused with it).
• 1 light teaspoon of
  honey
• 200g Corn Kernels
• 1 tablespoon Soya
  Sauce
• 100g each of yellow
  & red capsicum (cut into small cubes)
• 1 tablespoon chopped
  parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped
  coriander
• Salt, Ground Pepper
  to taste. 

Method of Preparation

• Infuse the tea in
  200ml of fresh boiled water for 3mins, strain, stir in honey and allow to cool for 20mins
• Add the corn, tea and Soya Sauce into a bowl & mix well.
• Add the capsicum and
  balance of spices into the mixture and blend to a smooth paste. (reserve a little to
  garnish when served).
• Place mixture into a
  fridge to cool.
• Serve cold with
  garnish.

[liberteas]

@tarastyme I don’t remember now which type of Oolong.  Basically, when I make a brine, I usually use a lot of vegetable broth but when it came time for me to brine my bird, I didn’t have any vegetable broth on hand and my husband was working a lot of odd hours so I didn’t know when I might get to the grocery to get more vegetable broth, so I “winged it” – I had an Oolong about a week before that was very “brothy-like” … reminding me a bit of a vegetative broth so I used it, together with peppercorns, rosemary and ginger.  It turned out awesome.

[teaformeplease]

I do a lot of baking with tea. Matcha is super easy to add to just about any recipe. The only trouble is that none of my family will eat my tea infused goodies so I have to eat them all myself. 

There was a shop I used to frequent in NYC that made these amazing green tea cookies.I actually found the recipe online. You can see it here: http://www.lovescool.com/archives/2007/05/15/best-bakery-recipe-finalist/#

Another great source of tea recipes is the book Culinary Tea. I made some jasmine vanilla scones that were to die for. 

[Anonymous]

*Thanks @liberteas!  i also brine my turkey usually with just water and kosher salt over night.  i am very excited about using tea instead of water or even other liquids.  tomorrow for the 4th I am going to try slow cooking a brisket in lapsang.  cross your fingers!  i think it will turn out well.

[liberteas]

@tarastyme:  I should have also mentioned salt in the brine… Lots of salt.  Salt, brewed tea, rosemary, peppercorns (I usually crack them roughly, but not complete grind the pepper), and ginger.  I usually use candied ginger instead of fresh.

[Jackie]

Here’s a lovely blog post on Zen can Cook with a recipe to make green tea (Matcha) cream puffs! Looks delicious! 

[Author]

Posts