Towards the beginning of our blog, we made Earl Grey & Lemon Shortbread & the flavour combination was great, so for our Tea Party extravaganza we have converted the shortbread into a cake. Rather than doing a standard cupcake we have gone for mini sandwiches, as we felt there would be too much icing with a cupcake that would overpower the Earl Grey & Lemon’s delicate flavour.
This technique is also a really fast, easy way to make cakes without the faff of piping the icing and making them look perfect, simply spoon in the cream, sandwich & you can finish with some icing sugar. Like mini victoria sponges but better.
- 175g softened butter
- 175g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 175g self raising flour
- zest of 1 lemons
- 2 earl grey tea bags (content)
- 300ml double cream
- Cream together the butter & the sugar until light & fluffy.
- Add the egg in 1 at a time with a spoon of the flour to prevent it from curdling.
- Mix in the flour, zest of 1 lemon & earl grey on slow (we don’t want the flour going everywhere) until fully combined.
- Pour the mix into a greased & lined baking sheet, bake in the oven at 180C for 20-25 minutes.
- Transfer the cake onto a cooling rack & leave the cake to cool.
- Whip the cream until thick, folding in the lemon zest.
- Trim the sides of the cake to create an even edge & cut the cake into 2″ squares, spoon a tablespoon of the whipped cream onto a square of cake & sandwich with another piece.
- Finish with a dusting of icing sugar.
Originally we pictured these as mini round cakes, however with doing this as a tray bake, rather than waste cake (NOBODY wants to waste cake) we cut ours into mini squares, which look pretty cute.
