Black Tea and Anise Mini Fluted Cakes
 
Makes 21
Ingredients
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1¼ cups granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon loose black tea blend*
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon ground anise
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ cup whole buttermilk
  • Sweetened Whipped Cream (recipe follows)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350°. Spray 21 wells of 2 (12-well) mini fluted cake pans with baking spray with flour.
  2. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars with a mixer at medium speed until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape sides of bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.
  3. Using a mortar and pestle or an electric spice grinder, grind tea leaves to a fine powder.
  4. In a medium bowl, whisk together ground tea, flour, anise, salt, and baking soda. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating just until combined after each addition. Using a 3-tablespoon levered scoop, drop batter into prepared wells of muffin pan. Tap pan on counter to release any air bubbles.
  5. Bake until edges are golden brown and a wooden pick inserted near centers comes out clean, 11 to 13 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out cakes onto wire racks, and let cool completely.
  6. Place Sweetened Whipped Cream in a piping bag fitted with a large open-star tip (Wilton #1M), and pipe a large rosette onto tops of cakes. Serve immediately.
Notes
Make-Ahead Tip: Cakes can be made a week in advance and stored in an airtight container and frozen. Let thaw completely before piping with Sweetened Whipped Cream.

*We used Simpson & Vail’s Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Black Tea Blend, available at svtea.com.
Recipe by TeaTime Magazine at https://teatimemagazine.com/black-tea-and-anise-mini-fluted-cakes-recipe/