Earl Grey Tea Cherry Soda - Refreshing Drinks

Last week, we had a couple of beautiful 23C days in Hong Kong, and I thought summer's over.
But of course I was wrong. We're back to hot summer days again :)
Time for refreshing drinks such as this one.

Recipe (for a glass)
- 2 bags of Earl Grey tea
- 1/4 cup hot water
- 2 tsp sugar (or more depending on how sweet you want it to be)
- 3-5 fresh cherries, pitted, halved
- soda
- ice cubes

Dunk earl grey tea bags into hot water remove after 2-3 minutes, add sugar (it should be quite sweet, considering that we will add soda water and ice cubes later), stir until dissolved. Pour into a serving glass, add soda water, cherries and ice cubes.

Of course you can add booze if you wish ;)

Have a great week!

Earl Grey Milk Tea...Sherbet Turned Slurpee

It all started with a hot, sticky, balmy, and hazy weekend.

I looked out my window and there seemed to be a layer of white with 80% opacity (my first photoshop "talk"...oh my!)

Roaming around outdoors for a mere 5 minutes felt unbearable...so I made a swift decision to abandon all of my weekend plans (window shopping, trying out new lenses, picnic in a park, cooking an elaborate weekend feast? Nonono...NO) and decided to stick my ass to my bed watching bad TV.

Initially, I had no intention to go anywhere near my stove or oven, and planned to survive the day by simply sucking on ice cubes. However, my itchy hands and my sudden sweet tooth failed me, I'd blame it on the memory of Hungry Monkey Sherbet I've made before.

Spending a few minutes on the stove and mixing some frozen liquid every hour in an air conditioned flat...sounds like an exciting way to spend this hot weekend (my super boring life - pity or envy? ^_^). At least I could feel like I've achieved something other than finishing another batch of sappy drama and growing my ass a few centimeters wider. HAHA!

Since I've done chocolate before, this time I wanted to experiment with something else.

Earl Grey Milk Tea Sherbet Slurpee

I thought I could simply remove the chocolate component of Dave's chocolate sherbet recipe and replaced it with earl grey tea. I was (again, as always) wrong.

To get enough earl grey tea flavor, I've added too much water. It took forever to freeze the mixture...and after a few hours of mixing, it became a slurpee instead of a sherbet.

Sigh....

Fortunately, slurpee is fantastic for summer, and earl grey is just the perfect tea for this, with a touch of fragrant bergamot...it gave the slurpee almost a minty quality to it.

Recipe
- 1 cup milk
- 5 cups hot water
- 8 bags of earl grey tea
- 2 pinches of salt
- 2/3 cup sugar

Brew tea with the hot water in a pot on a stove, add sugar, add salt, mix until dissolved, add milk, pour into a freezer safe container (I used a plastic container), and let cool. Once the mixture is cool, put in the freezer for one hour, use a hand mixer to mix the liquid, and put it back into the freezer, repeat this step until you get a smooth and fluffy texture. The slurpee can be served immediately after the last mixing (no further freezing required).

With this kind of weather, I am sure it'll be gone in no time.

In the end, I failed to finish another batch of sappy drama, but I think I still managed to grow my ass a little wider...thanks to this sweet treat.

Earl Grey Tea Cake - Is Cake Your Cup of Tea?

Looks like I am really mad about mixing and matching food and drinks recently. First, Spam & Shrimps Virgin Colada, then Ginger Cola Grilled Chicken Wings...and now Earl Grey Tea Cupcakes. Well, as long as I was not mixing and matching alcohol with prescription drugs...while preparing these cakes, I guess we're good :p

How do you like your cup of tea?
I guess it's all relative, eh?
...with breakfast
I like coffee. HAHA! If it had to be tea...then it has to be Hong Kong super rich milk tea or Indonesian jasmine tea with a bit of sugar
...with lunch/dinner
Iced tea, Indonesian style, which means no lemon, no milk, can be with/without sugar, which is reallyyyy hard to get in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong coffee shops, people drink either milk tea or lemon tea. So, my order of iced tea in Hong Kong coffee shops could go as complicated as this: "Iced lemon tea (dung ling cha) with less sugar (siu tim) and no lemon (jau ling)", and I normally get either "HUH??" or raised eyebrow or a frown as a reaction
...with dessert
Hot earl grey/mint tea, unsweetened, no milk. I fell in love with earl grey tea the moment I first tasted it. I love its fragrant, citrusy scent with rich, sweet, decadent desserts. Then again, why not put them together?

Earl Grey Tea Cake

Recipe
(yields 6 cupcakes)
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 cup tea (made of boiling water + 1 bag of earl grey tea)
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 egg white

Make your cup of tea first, make it richer than what you would normally drink, let cool. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl, mix wet ingredients in another bowl. Mix dry and wet ingredients together with a whisk (should not take long, batter should be a bit runny, if too solid, pour a bit more tea). Pour batter into muffin tray lined with paper cups, bake for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Do not overbake, as the cake won't be as soft and fluffy.

What should I make next? Fried chicken drinks/dessert, perhaps? (Ew!)