Black Tea Velvet Cake

The car was vibrating, I was doing 40mph on an A road and there was this cake slash frosting tower sitting (rather unhygienically) on my passenger seat floor. I don’t think cars are supposed to shake at 40, but I’ll let mine off on the grounds of my horrific driving which has likely caused the thing a number of car-health related issues. Hannah from The Littlest Bakehouse and I are driving to Manchester from London in August for the Cake Hunter’s wedding (!!!), so this is my pre-warning to you both that we MAY not make it alive. 

Just a few fruit fell from the frankly pointless blueberry volcano I decided to fancifully pile the cake with. When I parked up, I quickly glued the bluebs back into place with icing, before the boyf jumped in and we made our way to Street Feast in Lewisham to celebrate his 24th day of birth. Suffice to say, he shortly followed with “Did you glue the blueberries on with icing by any chance?” (Face-palm). 

I never got to properly eat a slice of the cake, but he said it tasted pretty darn good, and we’ve been together since the exact birth of this blog - cue explanation as to why that is relevant…. Also I dipped syrupy offcuts into leftover icing ;)

We are that cringy ‘red velvet cake on Valentines’ couple. But last year, the Malteser chocolate malt cake I made on his birthday leaned to the left like a condensed leaning tower of Pisa performing a drag act. So I went with our valentine’s tradition but I cut out the food colouring, because the entire bottle, which is needed for a “proper” red velv, gives the cake a really noticeable sour tang. And regardless of the childish excitement a brilliant red cake instils in me to this day, I can no longer handle that tang.  

In with the tealeaves! The tea flavour is faint in this ‘tea velvet’, perhaps slightly masked by the cocoa powder, but we much prefer it to food colouring flavour. 

Black Tea Velvet Cake 

Inspired by the Pastry Affair's Black Tea Cake with Honey Buttercream

Ingredients

For the cake

• 250ml milk
• 150g high-grade tealeaves (or the leaves from 10 teabags)
• 180g unsalted butter 
• 420g caster sugar
• 3 eggs, large
• 485g plain flour
• 45g cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp lemon juice/white wine vinegar 
• 1 ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp white wine vinegar 

For the syrup

• 100g sugar
• 150ml water
• Handful of high-grade tealeaves

For the icing

• 100g unsalted butter, room temp
• 600g icing sugar
• 250g full fat cream cheese 
• Handful of blueberries and toasted coconut shavings to decorate

Notes: There are a few lengthy steps in this recipe, like steeping milk and letting the cakes rest in the fridge before slicing, so it's best to start making the cake layers and milk tea a day ahead. 

Notes II: I know you’re looking at that icing recipe and wondering whether it causes diabetes. The sad fact is that frostings with cream cheese aren’t sturdy enough to ice the walls of cakes/create rosettes without that much icing sugar.

Method

1. Place milk in heavy bottomed saucepan with tea leaves, let simmer on a low heat for five minutes. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Cover and refrigerate overnight to further steep the milk, then strain the milk to remove the tea leaves. 
2. Line two 6 inch cake tins with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 160 C/180 Fan. Add lemon juice to tea milk and stir, then set aside.
3. Using either a freestanding mixer or electric whisk, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, around 4 minutes. While mixing, add one egg at a time. 
4. In a bowl, sieve together cocoa and flour. On medium speed, add a third of the flour, then a third of the strained tea milk, alternating between both until everything is smoothly incorporated.  Take care not to over-mix!
5. In a small bowl, add the baking soda, then the white wine vinegar. It will immediately froth up, add it straight into the cake batter and gently fold in using a spatula. Divide among pans and bake for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake is coming away from the sides of the pan. 
6. Let the cakes cool to room temperature then cover in cling film and refrigerate for a few hours/overnight. Slice both cakes horizontally with a serrated knife so that you have four equal layers. 
7. Meanwhile, to make the syrup, add all of the ingredients into a saucepan and let simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes. Take off the heat, strain the tealeaves and pour into a jug and set aside. Poke several holes into the cakes and gently pour the slightly cooled syrup into the cakes – be sparing with the syrup – over soaking causes the cakes to tear. 
8. Beat the icing sugar, butter and just a tablespoon of the cream cheese together on high speed until light, fluffy and pale - around 2/3 minutes. Add the rest of the cream cheese and beat on medium speed until smooth and thick. 
9. Fill a piping bag fitted with a closed star tip (Wilton 2D) with a third of the icing. Build the cake layers by piping rosettes around the edges of each layer. Squeeze a dollop of icing in the middle of each layer and smooth off with a spatula before adding the next layer. Finish the top layer with the same effect and sprinkle with the toasted coconut and blueberries. 
10. Cake will keep for three days if kept covered and refrigerated. 

Love Em xx