I have MOVED! Follow me here to http://www.cupcakeblog.com.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Recipe: The Thai Ice Tea Cupcake Experiment #0001

I am planning on developing two new-to-me cupcakes, Thai ice tea and horchata. With the Thai ice tea cupcake, I really want the flavor of the thai ice tea as well as sweetened condensed milk. I tried out a Thai ice tea cupcake recipe this past weekend.





The cake: The cake came out pretty good, it was tasty and had a nice crumb, but the Thai ice tea flavor was much too subtle. For the next experiment, I plan to brew tea instead of use instant thai ice tea, maybe that will get me the flavor I want. Otherwise, I am happy with the result.

The frosting: My plan was to take a seven minute frosting recipe and get some sweetened condensed milk in there some how. Two attempts, one involving heating the milk, the second involving adding it to a completed seven minute frosting, both failed... well, I ended up with a sweetened condensed milk foam. It could be nice in a different context, but was too sweet atop the cupcake. More work needed on the frosting for sure...

I planned to bring this experiment to the craftactory the next day, so I wanted to end up with something edible if not completely successful. So, I decided to make a cream cheese frosting with a hint of thai ice tea.

The result of the experiment became: Thai ice tea cupcake with Thai ice tea cream cheese frosting and a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk. The cream cheese overpowered any flavor of thai ice tea, but was yummy. The cupcakes were a hit at craft day, so that's good... Recipe #0001 follows.

Cupcakes
makes 24 cupcakes
350 degree oven

1 stick butter
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 packets instant thai ice tea
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large egg whites

1. soften butter in the mixer on high speed
2. mix instant thai ice tea powder and sugar together
3. drizzle the sugar mixture in with the butter and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes
4. sift flour, baking powder, and salt together
5. mix the milk and vanilla together
6. add the flour mixture and milk mixture to the butter/sugar in 3 parts alternating between flour and

milk and beating well after each addition
7. set aside incorporated mixture
8. in a clean mixer bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form
9. fold egg whites into cake batter until incorporated
10. scoop batter into the prepared cupcake pans
11. bake in the 350 degree oven for approximately 20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean

Frosting

1 stick butter
2 8oz packages of cream cheese
1 packet instant thai ice tea
2 tablespoons hot water
4 cups confectioner's sugar

1. soften butter in the mixer on high speed
2. add cream cheese and beat until combined
3. sift confectioner's sugar
4. dissolve thai ice tea powder in 2 tablespoon of hot water
5. add about half of the confectioner's sugar and the thai ice tea to the butter/cream cheese mixture and beat on high speed to combine
6. add remaining confectioner's sugar in stages until desired consistency and sweetness is achieved

Assembly
1. transfer a tablespoon of frosting onto each cooled cupcake
2. smooth out with a small pallet knife
(optional) 3. drizzle sweetened condensed milk on top of each frosted cupcake

Note: I had a good amount of frosting left over (about 1/3 of the volume). I am usually ok with that, as I freeze the left overs and use them later on. Never hurts to have cream cheese frosting at the ready.

12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You might want to try bottled Thai iced tea instead of brewing your own or the instant. I find those don't really taste like the real Thai iced tea and the bottled kind generally does. You can find it at (duh) Thai grocery stores or some Asian food stores. It's good stuff. Most Thai restaurants use the bottled stuff.

5/20/2005 7:12 PM  
Blogger chockylit said...

Thanks for the tip. I was in a Thai grocery, but no sign of the bottled stuff. I will check around at some others.

5/21/2005 2:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hmmm... any change this could be slightly modified to taste like the thai iced coffee instead of tea? my guy loves that stuff.

5/22/2005 8:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have a recipe for Earl Gray Tea wafers which uses both brewed tea and tea leaves ground with the sugar for flavor. I've never tried the recipe, though I've been tempted. Perhaps a similar method of flavoring your cupcakes would work.

I also use espresso powder (Medaglia D'Oro) in baking. Perhaps the powder for the instant Thai tea would also work as a flavoring ingredient, just added to the dry ingredients, or reconstituted with a small amount of water, or whatever liquid the recipe calls for.

5/24/2005 8:25 AM  
Blogger chockylit said...

I got Thai Ice Tea ice cream at Mitchell's this past weekend... It was good, but not so thai-ice-tea-y. I thought to ask them their secret, but think against it. I am going to try to find the bottled stuff (I hope its unsweetened as I need to control the sweetness) and try brewing it and crushing the leaves.

The powdered stuff (pre-sweetened) is unnatural...

About thai ice coffee -- the coffee flavor would be relatively easy as good espresso powder products exist, but I still need to figure out the sweetened condensed mill frosting that would sit atop said cupcake.

Haven't tried earl grey, chai, or green tea cupcakes... maybe some day.

5/26/2005 5:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks for the inspiration! I tried your recipe and doubled the tea mix in the cake and I made a frosting with 4 packets of tea mix. You could definitely taste the Thai iced tea flavor, but it still was not reeeeally potent. I also made a white frosting/topping that I layered on top of the orange one that had a pretty strong flavor of condensed milk. That made it look like the real drink, too.

5/26/2005 8:54 PM  
Blogger chockylit said...

How did you make the condensed milk frosting? Was it just a buttercream with condensed milk? Or something else? (I plan to try this soon...)

5/27/2005 10:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Chockylit,

Thai ice tea has palm sugar syrup in it. Palm sugar is dark brown, tastes like caramel and molasses, and is available at most Asian grocery stores. Perhaps you could include palm sugar as part of your ingredients next time round?

9/08/2005 1:49 AM  
Blogger chockylit said...

Ah! Of course, I have palm sugar in my pantry. I use it for curries. Duh. I need to work on this recipe again soon.

9/08/2005 10:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was looking for cupcake recipes for my daughters 4th bday and came across your blog. You do some amazing stuff!! I wanted to try out the cream cheese frosting in the Thai iced tea cupcake but with out the Thai iced tea flavor. Do I just leave that ingredient out??

11/08/2005 12:27 AM  
Blogger chockylit said...

Actually, I have since refined the recipe. Try this one instead:

Basic Cream Cheese Frosting

12 ounces or 1-1/2 packages of Philly cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
4-5 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. bring cheese and butter to room temperature by letting it sit out for 1 or 2 hours
2. sift powdered sugar into a bowl or onto parchment
3. beat butter and cheese at medium speed until creamy
4. add 4 cups of the sugar and beat until combined
5. add vanilla and beat until combined
6. add more sugar until you get to the consistency and sweetness you like

Thanks!

11/08/2005 7:29 AM  
Blogger Tamela said...

I am going to try this recipe I love Thai Ice Tea and cupcakes so it is perfect for me. I have a link to your blog on my blog cheftami because I like your blog alot. If you have a chance visit my blog http://cheftami.blogspot.com/

4/12/2006 10:24 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home