Cooking with Tea

The uses of tea are endless! It's not only a warm, comforting drink but it can be used for beauty, health, baking, and more.

In this post, I want to inspire you to not just drink tea, but to cook with tea!

Here are four different recipes and ways to incorporate tea into your everyday cooking .

1) Earl Grey Sugar Cookies

You can add crushed tea leaves to many different things. One very common use of crushed tea leaves is in butter cookies.

Find my recipe for Earl Grey Sugar Cookies here: http://lexalexrecipe.blogspot.ca/

2) Darjeeling Mousse Tart 

Another way to use tea is to steep it in any liquid ingredients. If you're making pancakes, steep tea in the milk. Likewise, if you're baking a cake you could steep tea leaves in the cake batter. In this particular recipe, I steeped Darjeeling in the cream before I made it into mousse.

Find the recipe here: http://lexalexrecipe.blogspot.ca/





3) Jasmine Tea Rub Ribs 

I'm sure you've heard of coffee rubs but there's also such a thing as tea rubs! These amazing ribs are made with jasmine tea leaves. You could use tea rubs in all sorts of meat recipes.

Find this recipe here: http://thewoksoflife.com/2014/07/jasmine-tea-rub-ribs/

(photography from http://thewoksoflife.com)

4) Miso Green Tea and Ginger Tofu Soup

One last way to use tea is in soups. You could steep a bag of tea in almost any kind of soup. Peppermint and green tea would pair lovely with many types of soup. 

Find this recipe here: http://www.sheknows.com

(photography from http://www.sheknows.com)

GF Darjeeling Berry Mousse Tart

GF Darjeeling Berry Mousse Tart 

Find crust recipe here: https://simplygluten-free.com/blog

Filling:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tsp second-flush darjeeling 

2 cups frozen berries

1/2 cup sugar (you can add more or less to taste)

1/4 cup of cold water
1 teaspoon gelatin

(I got my darjeeling from: http://www.teacampaign.ca)

1) Measure heavy whipping cream into a bowl and add darjeeling to steep (set in fridge for at least an hour)

2) Defrost the frozen berries and strain juice into sauce pan - set aside

3) Add gelatin to cold water and let sit 

4) Put berry juice on medium heat and add sugar 

5) Once juice is steaming, add in gelatin and remove from heat 

6) Transfer juice to bowl and set in fridge until thickened 

7) Strain darjeeling tea leaves from cream 

8) Pour cream into mixer and mix on high until small peaks form 

9) Add berry juice to whipped cream and carefully mix together 

10) pour mousse into cooked tart crust and set in fridge 

enjoy!

(this filling recipe makes enough to fill one small tart crust - double or triple the recipe for a large tart)

A Bit of Baking

Since my brothers have come home for the summer, I've started baking again! Yesterday I made these lovely coconut macaroons and today I made brownies. The macaroons are absolutely amazing! I suggest you try them out. Both of these recipes are super quick and easy. 

Here's the macaroon recipe: http://pamelasalzman.com/coconut-macaroons/

(I used less sugar and maple syrup in place of the honey. They were plenty sweet!)

 Brownie recipe: http://www.eatgood4life.com/2013/04/the-best-gluten-free-brownies-ever.html

(Plus they're gluten-free!) 

Christmas Cookies

I loveeee baking Christmas cookies. My favorites to make are cut-out sugar cookies. This year, I attempted to make gluten-free sugar cookies. Though I doubted how they would turn out, they ended up being great! It was time consuming and messy but I'm very happy with the finished product. My favorite cookie I made was probably the dinosaur.

I bought the lovely dinosaur cookie cutter on Etsy. You can find this cute cookie cutter store here: CookieCutterGuy 

I found the wonderful gluten-free sugar cookie recipe here:

GF Sugar Cookies