tea trio chiffon cakes

I love baking, but I’m not very good at it. Most of the time the end products will taste better than they look, so please believe me when I say these chiffon cakes were wonderful!

I’ve been on a bit of a tea kick lately, as evidenced by the last few posts, so I decided to incorporate various flavours into a pillow-soft cake. A chiffon cake recipe seemed perfect for the job, and after scouring the net for some recipes, I came across Tham Jiak’s recipe for green tea chiffon cake. I simply replaced the green tea with earl grey tea and loose earl grey tea leaves to sprinkle into the mixture, and for subsequent batches, experimented with osmanthus green tea and ceylon tea with dried rosebuds!

The earl grey chiffon was simply made with brewed tea and loose tea leaves sprinkled into the mixture, and the other two followed a pretty similar method. I had some osmanthus green tea bags (TenRen, excellent Taiwanese tea company), as well as some loose dried osmanthus flowers. For the last one, I used loose ceylon tea leaves and crushed the pink leaves from some dried rosebud tea. The osmanthus and rose petals made for some pretty decorations on top of the cakes! But the ceylon tea and rose version was the least successful, because (1) I must have somehow measured out the tea wrong, so the end batter was too liquid, resulting in a too-moist cake, and (2) I couldn’t think of any way to invert my tins to allow the cake to cool without squashing the tops flat, so I left it as is – and as expected, they collapsed and have a dip in the middle!

Out of the three cakes I made, my favourite is still the earl grey version. The other two were too subtle, so I may have to make adjustments to the quantities of tea I use next time. I was afraid of going overboard with the osmanthus, but turns out that I could have been a lot more heavy-handed with the delicate golden flowers. Nevertheless, the aroma came through, if not a bit too lightly. The ceylon tea with rosebuds was very nice but I didn’t add enough of the ceylon, because I didn’t want it to overpower the rose! It was really fragrant and not too floral (which I hate – why would you want to eat a soap-flavoured cake?), and again, I think it was only let down by its over-moist texture.

I really like chiffon cake because it’s so light and airy (there’s no butter involved), and you definitely don’t feel bloated after eating an entire one (err… which may be what I did after they came out of the oven…). It’s also a really great base for incorporating any flavour you want. Now that I’ve made these chiffon cakes, my next mission will be to create tea macarons. Mmm, osmanthus-scented macarons? I can imagine that would be divine. But that shall have to wait, for I’d need a million more implements and I really shouldn’t be cluttering up my parents’ tiny kitchen with more frivolous bakers’ “essentials”!

The recipe for earl grey chiffon lies under the entry cut.

a teaspoon of loveliness

Teaspoon’s exterior. Note all photos that follow (including this one above) are from the Teaspoon/Leluu website.

In about three weeks I’ll be back in London, and this time, instead of complaining about it (though I probably will, inevitably) I’m going to try and look on the bright side of things. Namely, by listing out new places to visit and cafes/restaurants to eat and drink at! The first thing on my list is this new hybrid of a shop called Teaspoon Leluu & Dewdhory – a creative venture merging two of my favourite things – tea and fashion.

From what I can gather, Leluu started as a small independent fashion label with its own boutique in Covent Garden’s Seven Dials. In fact, I even think I’ve been in there several times, always amazed by the whimsical, beautiful clothing and accessories but always too skint to buy any of their pieces. Sadly, they shut down late last year due to extortionate rent. Luckily, they’ve reinvented themselves by opening up a new shop in Paddington – and have combined their love for fashion design with their love for teas! I’m really liking what I see so far.

I’m looking forward to trying some of their teas (they have free taste testings), like Earl Grey Supreme and Oriental Beauty Oolong, as well as their first-pick Shizuoka Sencha. And of course, perusing the racks and perhaps finally investing in a Leluu original!

Teaspoon Leluu & Dewdhory
195 Praed Street, Paddington, London, W2 1RH
www.leluu.com

a little tea heaven

The next best thing after discovering a really fabulous place to eat/drink is to have someone else show you one of their favourite destinations. So on Thursday, a certain Ms Wong took me to the Sunsing Teahouse, located on the 32nd floor of the Soundwill Plaza in Causeway Bay. It’s a clean, quiet and sophisticated (yet unintimidating) teahouse overlooking the Times Square area, and from the moment you walk in you will feel calm, serene, and oh-so-far removed from the noise and chaos down on street level. Just the way a perfect tea house should make you feel.

It’s also clearly a haven for tea connoisseurs and lovers alike; on our visit there was a large group of Japanese women who stayed for hours, participating in what looked like a lesson on tea given by one of the group. The group pictured on the far left, we assumed, were true-blue tea fanatics congregating to enjoy several precious teas. The room is filled with quality teas, including rare aged puehr, gorgeous tea ware, and tea literature.

Each table has its own wooden water tray (with a discreet tube that draws the excess water away into a wooden bucket under the table), glass tea ware and china cups, and a black ceramic (?) kettle with an electric heating device to heat the water. A complimentary plate of Macanese treats were presented, which included phoenix egg rolls filled with dried pork floss and sesame seeds, wrapped with nori, and mini almond cakes (which I polished off with relish).

I took the liberty to order our first pot of tea – osmanthus oolong, one of my favourites and a tea that will always cheer me up with its uplifting, peachy aroma and clean taste. Being somewhat intimidated by the fiddly tea ware, I let Angie take over in the tea-pouring business. But to make things short, Sunsing’s website has a rather charming little tutorial on how to properly prepare and drink your tea. The tea was lovely as expected, and once we’d gotten all we could out of the leaves, we ordered a pot of west lake dragon well tea. All vibrant green leaves, the tea had a strong, very earthy, almost roasted rice-like aroma, so it was a good tea to follow after the gentle and floral osmanthus oolong.

The teahouse doubles as a shop, and virtually any kind of tea or teaware you can think of is available. From clay teapots for brewing that perfect oolong, to traditional, classy gaiwans. To my delight, they also sold the little double-walled glass teacups that I’ve always been meaning to buy from Jing Teas back in London. Each are handmade (in Taiwan) and unique. These little cups are not only delicate and beautiful (a real work of art), but extremely practical – the double wall is designed so that you don’t burn your fingers on the cup. At only $15HKD (£1) per glass, it was a steal considering the £2.50 price tag from Jing. And I have to thank Angie for sneakily paying for them as well as all our tea!

Teas start from $30HKD per pot (though note there is a minimum charge of $30 per person) and can go up to over $150 for the more expensive, rare teas. Unfortunately there’s a time limit on how long you can stay – two hours, though we found that was just enough for us – by the end of it, we were totally ‘tea-ed out’ and full to the brim. The service was, of course, impeccable.

Conclusion: A brilliant place, and a good one to go to if you’d like to learn more about teas.

Sunsing Tea House (新星茶莊)
38 Soundwill Plaza, 32/F, Shop 3201
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel: 2832 2889
www.sunsingtea.com

la crème de la crème

These aren’t the prettiest crème caramels in the world, but I can tell you that the taste and texture was amazing.

Alas, I was going to make a really awful pun-ny title and write something along the lines of ‘la crème de la crème des crème caramels’ (the best of the best of crème caramels) but I realised the tragic limits of my GCSE French – apparently getting an A* means all you’ll be able to remember six years afterwards is how to say ‘where’s the loo?’ and ‘I’d like a croque monsieur, please’. But I digress.

One of my favourite blogs of the moment is Coco&Me, written by the incredibly lovely Tamami of the Coco&Me bake stall in Broadway Market. It was actually her site that first inspired me to attempt to make macarons in my own home, because of the really helpful tips she’d always write into her recipes. This time her gorgeous crème caramel recipe caught my eye, and it seemed like something I could do easily in our tiny kitchen, and it didn’t require any fancy tools or ingredients.

Now that I’m in Hong Kong, there’s not a whole lot of baking I can do. It was never a big thing in my family, though my mom used to make some awesome birthday cakes back in Canada and would let me lick the whipped cream off the beaters! Also, we don’t have any of the proper utensils here for baking – we’re talking no scales, no rolling pins, no measuring spoons or cups, and no sieves apart from the tiny ones we use to strain our tea. We hardly ever have butter in our fridge, flour is only used for coating marinated meat, and when I trooped to our nearest supermarket, I was utterly shocked that there was no trace of single/double creams on the shelves. I chose the most promising one, ‘thickened cream’ and hoped for the best. It was pretty expensive, too, over a pound for 250ml! Ah, finally some things I can be grateful for back in England… With some quick purchases, I was ready to make some dessert!

The first batch failed, because I’d underestimated just how tiny egg yolks in Hong Kong chicken eggs are. The custard wouldn’t set and was awfully delicate and fell to bits. The second batch was brilliant, if I do say so myself – though the presentation leaves a lot to be desired..

Half-devoured… om nom nom!

Um, you can see that I went a bit overboard with the vanilla (what can I say, I love the stuff). I also didn’t make enough custard for my three ramekins, so that’s why the crème caramels are so flat. Anyways, in this version, I steeped some of my dad’s HK-style tea leaves (a secret blend which I haven’t worked out yet!) in the cream and milk and straining the leaves away before mixing in with the egg yolks. The result? Like silky pantyhose tea in a pudding – absolutely friggen gorgeous. The flavour of the tea cuts through the super sweetness of the caramel and the creamy texture was phenomenal… deary me, was that saliva that just ran down my chin?

Recipe (with lots of helpful tips) can be found over at Tamami’s site.

antique patisserie

My favourite activity as of late has been trundling up and down the roads of Central Noho/Soho, especially around the Wellington/Gage/Graham St areas. ‘Twas a mere coincidence that I came across this lovely little tea room in all its pastel-coloured glory while prying my eyes away from Tai Cheong Bakery’s famous egg tarts (located right across from Antique). Of course, walking up the steep steps of Graham Street in spikey heels had rendered me sweaty and red in the face (alas, too much eating, too little moving) and I deemed myself unsuitable to take tea that afternoon. I did, however, take a peek at the wonderful display of cakes and macarons just inside the door. Delectable looking macarons with creamy complexions waited languorously inside their bell jar-like confinements to be devoured (“saucy little minxes”, as Bill Bailey would say); the assortment of little cakes vyed for my attention with their cute and creative designs – the chocolate cake with the three little macarons caught my eye and two days later I dragged my mom there to indulge a bit.

With a tinkle of the door, we were in. The waitress who showed us into the tea room was absolutely charming – soft-spoken and very hospitable. Reading a few reviews afterwards, it seems quite a few people have become quite enamoured by her (though less could be said about her colleague, but more on that later). The tea room is quite small, with around 6 tables – three on one side of the room with ‘antique’ styled chairs (I’m afraid my decor lingo is rather limited) and low tables, the other side held ivory coloured tables and chairs, very classy. Everything about the room was lovely, from the flock pattern on the armchairs to the (faux) crystal-trimmed lampshades.

‘Chocolate forest’ cake

We each ordered the cake tea set, which obviously included a cake as well as a pot of tea or coffee of your choice. I had the ‘chocolate forest’, as pictured above – a wonderful black forest-inspired gâteau with layers of raspberry cream and jelly, topped with three macarons of varying sizes (though their flavours were practically indistinguishable from each other). My mom had the ‘berry basket’ – a tart berry mousse-cake topped with various berries, including a very pretty physallis fruit.

She stuck with Earl Grey tea (which had a very sharp scent and tasted a tad bitter) while I pondered over the very-appealing sounding ‘Gorgeous Geisha’ and ‘Sencha Vanilla’. At this point we’d been sitting for well over 10 minutes and no one had came to take our order, so we decided to simply go up to the counter instead.

The waitress that served us eventually was simply rude – she acted as if taking our orders was a chore, and somehow throughout the whole exchange, had an expression on her face that made it seem like I was offending her with my very presence (!). When I asked her what the Geisha tea was made of, she said it was ‘just green tea’, as if it were obvious. Ah well, so I opted for the sencha vanilla in the end. She was quite short with us, and after we’d ordered there was a brief awkward moment where no one said anything and she just stared at us as if waiting for us to waste more of her time. Scary. Maybe she was just in a bad mood that day.

Other than that, we had a marvellous time. There were only two other patrons in the tea room for a while, followed by a small group of girls. Soothing classical music plays in the background that adds to the mellowing experience (and I liked it – often I find classical music pretentious and distracting, but this was pleasant). No one bothers you. And of course, the cakes are magnificent – I really enjoyed my chocolate forest, which was a nice contrast between the tart raspberry and bittersweet chocolate. Yum. Somehow it reminded me of that not-so-good raspberry star dessert at Ducasse, except it was so much better. Next time I aim to try their signature cheesecake and ‘misu misu’ (tiramisu). And the sencha vanilla tea was extraordinary. I drank cup after cup, just breathing in that wonderful light vanilla scent.

Their macarons also looked so delectable, sell for $11HKD each, and they also do a macaron tea set ($50HKD) that includes two macarons of your choice along with the choice of tea/coffee/hot chocolate. Did I mention that they also have a million other tea sets as well, including a scone set, as well as the full traditional afternoon tea set (a bit pricey though, I’d rather go to a hotel for that). Another large display is dedicated to Whittamer chocolates and truffles, which are imported from Belgium. And the tea is served in lovely bone china from Royal Albert. Dainty! All in all, a lovely destination for tea and cake lovers.

Antique Patisserie Tea Room
Shop 1, G/F, 46 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong
Tel: 2542 2816

Antique Patisserie stores
Shop 309-310, The Lee Gardens, 33 Hysan Avenue, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel: 2907 2908

Basement 2, Sogo Department Store, 555 Hennessy Rd, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel: 2573 6998