CHAMOMILE ORANGE CAKE

Better photos coming - we…ate it all after plating too fast for pics, every time.

Recipe originally crafted by baker Karlee Flores for Smith Teamaker.

Let me introduce you to my favorite tea and my favorite tea cake. Smith Teamaker is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with a tea tasting room and blending facility there. When I first stumbled upon it, I thought it was quaint and very Portland. I rapidly fell in love with every single blend. My favorites are Meadow, Golden Light, Lord Bergamot, Rose City Genmaicha, and the seasonal Ho-Ho-Hoji-Chai.

Meadow is a part of my nightly ritual and ingredients include chamomile, South African rooibos, hyssop, linden flowers, rose petals and more. It’s fragrant, soothing, and crafted so beautifully that each bag of tea is blended from the best ingredients and looks like a dried bouquet.

This cake? NEXT LEVEL.

Instagram caught me with an ad. Honestly, I didn’t even think twice before looking up the recipe and I was not disappointed.

I’ve baked hundreds of thousands of cakes, cupcakes, scones, muffins, in batch sizes that would terrify the most ambitious bakers. Mixers you could blend 10 whole turkeys in. Ovens that fit 40 full size sheet-pans at once. Machines that portioned 1,000 muffins an hour. Needless to say, I’ve baked a LOT. And almond flour? Easily one of my favorites to bake with, plus it’s gluten-free!

Mixed with infused butter and topped with tart mascarpone and fresh oranges? Heaven. Absolute heaven.

Meadow Tea Cake

Ingredients

• ½ cup unsalted butter (one stick)

• 4 sachets of Stephen Smith Teamaker’s Meadow or 4 tbsp. loose blend

• 6 eggs

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar

• 2 1/3 cup super fine almond meal

• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp salt

• Zest of 2 oranges

• 8 ounces of Mascarpone or Crème Fraiche

• oranges sliced or diced for topping

Directions

1. Over medium heat in a small saucepan, melt butter. Cut open the tea sachets and sprinkle into the melted butter. Continue to cook over low heat for about 3 minutes. Be careful to not brown the butter. Turn off the heat and let sit to infuse longer while the cake is prepared.

2. Preheat oven to 375º degrees.

3. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan and set aside.

4. In a large bowl, lightly whisk the eggs until all the yolks are broken.

5. Add in the sugar, brown sugar and combine with a whisk until uniform.

6. Add in the super fine almond meal, baking powder, and salt and whisk until combined.

7. Add in the zest of the oranges and pour the infused butter into the batter over a sieve to prevent the larger tea from getting into the batter. Discard the tea.

8. Whisk the batter again to incorporate the fat and the zest evenly, about 1 minute.

9. Pour cake batter into prepared cake pan and place in the preheated oven on middle rack for 40-45 minutes*.

   1. The cake will be done when it no longer has any jiggle in the middle and a toothpick will come out clean.

10. Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a cake plate.

11. When the cake has completely cooled, top with room temperature mascarpone or crème fraiche and dust with powdered sugar or more orange zest.

    *Note : I baked at 375º with convection and my cake was done in 35 minutes.

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