Fancy Some Tea?

Last year, my boyfriend introduced me to chai lattes. Since then, chai and I have a very good relationship. When looking in my favorite cupcake recipe book, Primrose Bakery, I read the Earl Grey recipe. There was a blurb about substituting your favorite tea instead of Earl Grey...now you know what that meant- Chai cupcakes with a chai buttercream. I only had five chai tea bags left so I used four for the cake recipe and only one for the buttercream. I was very proud of myself after tasting the frosting. I made it completely on my own, just throwing stuff into the good old kitchen aid mixer. Even now I couldn't tell you exact measurements. I didn't think the one tea bag infusing the milk I had set aside would be enough flavor for the butercream so I also added the spices I found laying around that make up chai: nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger. The only thing I didn't have was cardamom, but it still tasted wonderful. A nice lightly sweet cupcake. Take a look!

 

 

Cafe Mocha

These last two weeks have been pretty dreadful. Between saying goodbyes to almost all my friends as they head off to "the time of their lives", long shifts at work, and motivating myself to pack-let's just say it's been messy. Luckily one of my best friend's sisters, Colleen, gave me something to do that lets me have some time to myself. Yes, it's baking. Colleen wanted snickerdoodle and something else. I'm glad she ordered two kinds, because she let me surprise her. I have a list of cupcakes I've been dying to make and these were it. Mocha cupcakes (courtesy of Mybakingaddiction). The cake was perfect texture, and the frosting really made the coffee flavoring stronger. They may not have the amount of caffeine in a regular cup of coffee, but these will surely wake you up!