Earl Grey Pound Cake

It is inevitable that if you have an older sibling, some of the characteristics from the older sibling will rub off on you. Such is the case with earl grey. The Sis enjoys earl grey tea, and while I don't take it as it is, I must say I do love a cuppa earl grey milk tea.

My stash of my favourite brand of earl grey tea bags had ran out, and I was lazy to pop into town just to grab a box of it, thus I tried out a new brand of boxed earl grey tea leaves. I brewed a cuppa earl grey milk tea to test it out, and it was not as fragrant as my regular cup. Thus I decided to use it in baking rather than drinking. The first thing I chose to make was this earl grey pound cake.

Earl Grey Pound Cake

Since I had a full box of earl grey tea leaves waiting to be used, I decided to up the earl grey used in the recipe. And I replaced plain milk with earl grey infused milk (I had some leftover from another recipe). The resulting cake had a really strong earl grey flavour, which is a thumbs up of course.

However, texture wise, it was a bit too dry, and it crumbled easily. I'm sure I'll be repeating this recipe again - but I'll probably up the liquid used in the recipe to 3 tbsp, or even 4 tbsp to make it more moist. With this batch of pound cake, since I had some leftover earl grey custard from another recipe (post to follow soon), I warmed it up a lil and then poured it over the pound cake. It was just the right complement to the cake.

Earl Grey Pound Cake (adapted from Grace at Piggy's Cooking Journal)
130g cake flour
1/3 teaspoon baking powder
10g earl grey tea leaves, crushed in a mortar into fine powder
120g unsalted butter, at room temperature
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
100g caster sugar
2 eggs, separated
*2 tbsp earl grey tea infused milk (or regular milk) (recommend increasing to 3 tbsp)

Preheat oven to 170C. Lightly grease and line a 17X7X6cm cake pan with baking paper.
Sift flour, baking powder and tea leaves in a bowl and set aside.
Combine butter, 50g sugar and salt in a medium bowl and beat with a handheld electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, mix well, scraping sides of the bowl. Add in vanilla and salt, then add half the milk. Beat well, then add half the flour mixture, mix well.
Add in remaining milk, then the rest of the flour. Beat well with each addition.
In a separate bowl, using clean beaters, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 50g sugar and continue to beat until the egg whites are glossy and till firm peaks.
Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the butter mixture until just combined. Fold in another 1/3 egg whites gently, then the remaining egg whites.
Transfer the batter into the greased cake pan. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake turns out clean. Let the cake cools on wire rack.

* Update June 2013 - I made this again using 1/4 cup of milk and the cake was perfect. Not dry at all and perfectly moist.