Black Tea And Vanilla Muffins

I have a confession to make.  I hope it won’t change your opinion of me and that we can still be friends.  I don’t like coffee, not the smell of it, not the taste of it, no matter how much sugar, cream or fancy flavored syrup I put in it. I just don’t like it.  There I said it. I know, I know, there is something wrong with me. Lol.

Although, I don’t like coffee, I have recently come to love drinking tea. For me, it wasn’t a big step of incorporating my new passion for tea into my old passion of cooking and baking. It is amazing how may recipes are out there that use brewed tea or tea leaves as an ingredient.

The original recipe used a tea bag of black tea, I only had loose leaf tea so I just threw it in the butter and left it there. If you have fillable tea sachets you could put the tea in one, tie it shut with butcher’s twine and throw it in with the butter and take the sachet out.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

Adapted From Self Proclaimed Foodie

4 TBS butter

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 tea bag or 1 tsp loose leaf black tea

1cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

1/4 cup white sugar

2 TBS brown sugar

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and grease muffin tins with non- stick cooking spray.

In a medium sized pan over medium heat, melt the butter with the tea bag tea or tea leaves and vanilla over medium heat. Swirl occasionally to ensure butter is cooking evenly and the flavors of the tea are mixed into the butter . As the butter melts, it will begin to foam and the color will get darker. Continually scrape bottom of pan to release any brown specs. Once you start smelling the nutty aroma, remove browned butter from heat and allow to cool.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, sugars, baking power, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, and cooled browned butter together. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid ingredients. Fold together and do not over mix.

Spoon batter into greased muffin tins and bake in for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees F and continue cooking until golden brown, about 15-25 minutes. When done cooking, immediately remove from muffin tins and allow to cool on cooling rack.

Black Tea Lemonade

Meet my new favorite drink.  I had  black tea lemonade for the first time at Starbucks and it blew me away. I loved it! What I didn’t love was the over $3.00 price tag for a small glass so I figured out to  how to make it at home.  I found that you can use different flavors of  tea and juice concentrate in this recipe.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

Ingredients

5 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

8 regular size tea bags

5 more cups of water

1 can lemonade concentrate

In a large saucepan, add 5 cups water, sugar and teabags over medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar.  Let brew for 10 minutes.  Remove tea from the heat and let the teabags steep for 3 minutes.  Dispose of the tea bags.  Add 5 more cups of water and lemonade concentrate.  Let cool and serve over ice.