I was extremely curious about the effect of the different ways of using tea for baking. I wanted to know if there was any noticeable difference and what would it be by cooking with steeped tea vs. using the tea leaves directly in the batter. I chose to make cookies, and even though the recipe did’t include milk, I decided to add some steeped with tea to test its effect (it’s not a big deal adding milk since it can add structure to the batter and also give baked goods their crisp crust).
I’m not a big fan of sugar cookies so I tried something like a snickerdoodle cookie, softer and chewier and experimented with both options. I made a batch with Earl Grey steeped in milk (for simplicity, let’s call it ‘A’) and another one with the Earl Grey leaves from tea bags (‘B’). (When cooking with tea, it is a good idea to use teabags for a few reasons. It is a lower quality tea and don’t want to use your best tea for cooking, you want to drink it! Also, it’s already ground very fine so it works great to combine with batter, just open the tea bags and throw in the leaves.)
The first noticeable difference was the dough’s aroma. ‘A’ was way more fragrant than ‘B’, so I was hoping to get a strong flavor from ‘A’. The color of the dough was different too, as ‘A’ was colored by the steeped tea, while ‘B’ kept it’s dough-ish color.
When the cookies were baked and cooled, I was able to tell a few differences:
‘A’ had a lovely light caramel color but you could only taste a hint of the Earl Grey. It was almost like a soft flavoring, similar to adding vanilla extract effect.
‘B’ had the best and stronger flavor! These tasted wonderfully and you could feel the Earl Grey in every bite.
*For this recipe, I only used 2 oz of steeped milk (it has to be steeped very strongly though, I used 3 teabags for 2oz), so the low amount of milk in the recipe is the reason for the weak flavor.
In Conclusion, if you want to achieve a strong tea flavor in the cookies, use the tea leaves directly. This will also work great with other firmer doughs like scones, bread, etc. On the other hand, if what you’re baking has more water or milk in it, steeping them strongly with tea could be the way to go vs. using the tea leaves, for example in a pound cake or something that has a runnier dough.
This is the recipe I used:
Earl Grey Snickerdooddle
2018-05-20 14:18:06
Cook Time
12 min
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- *Earl Grey leaves of 2-3 teabags OR 2 oz Earl Grey steeped in milk (steep with 3 teabags). If you decide to use the milk in this recipe you might need to add a bit more flour so that the dough is not sticky.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.
- Add egg and vanilla, mixing well until combined, about 2 minutes. ** If using steeped milk, add now.
- Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. *** If using tea leaves, add them now.
- Mix until dough comes together, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Remove the dough from fridge, roll into big 1 1/2 inch balls and place on baking sheet. Lightly press down on dough to flatten it.
- Bake at 375 F for 10-12 minutes.
Tea Cachai https://www.teacachai.com/
