Dark Chocolate Tea Cupcakes with Sweet Tea Frosting and Marzipan Penguins

Dark Chocolate Tea Cupcakes with Sweet Tea Frosting and Marzipan Penguins

This weekend we celebrated the birthday of my great friend Liz. Liz likes tea, chocolate, and penguins, so these cupcakes were an exercise in combining the three in the best possible way.

Cupcakes:
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup loose-leaf jasmine tea

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine tea and milk in a saucepan and bring to a simmer on the stove. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes.

Sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda. Beat together eggs and vegetable oil in another bowl.

Take the steeped milk tea and strain out the tea leaves. Save them.

Mix everything together until smooth. The batter is very liquid at this point.

Fill cupcake tins 3/4 of the way full. Bake 15 minutes, turn, and bake 15 minutes. Let cool.

Adapted from The Foodies' Kitchen.

Frosting:
The tea leaves you saved from before
1/4 cup boiling water
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, soft
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted.

Combine tea leaves and water and leave in the fridge to steep and cool, about 30 minutes. Strain out the tea leaves (this time you can get rid of them).

Meanwhile, beat the butter and shortening until smooth, and sift in the powdered sugar. Add the tea, then beat until smooth.

The icing will be a gorgeous pale brown color. If desired, you can tint it.

Adapted from Confesions of a Cookbook Queen



Penguins:
12 oz marzipan

Divide into three portions, one large, one medium, one small. Use food paste to tint the small portion orange and the large portion black. Make little penguins. Use magic if necessary.