Fruit Tea Cupcakes

This is the last variation from the Earl Grey Cupcakes recipe. The other was the Peppermint Tea cupcakes which I actually made first. It says to use whatever fruit flavour tea you like so I picked Red Berry.

Put the tea on to brew, which was looking like a nice red colour and started on the dry mixture. All went fine and so added the red tea to the milk and egg mixture as stated. This is where things got interesting...expected it to stay red but the milk diluted the colour and it went a sort of violet when all combined. Though this would make an interesting sponge and so assumed the icing would match too. How wrong I was. When the milk mixture was added to the dry ingredients it then diluted the colour even more and turned a strange sort of metallic silver with a blue tinge.

Spooned it into the cases and got 16 in total, managed to get the measurements for each cupcakes right this time and didn't over or under fill them like the previous few times. Seem to have go my mojo back on that front. I had to take a picture of them before they went in to bake as it was such a strange sight, being the colour the batter had turned out in the end. Wondered how they would look once cooked now.

Timer on and I popped the brewed and strained tea bags into the milk which is to make up the frosting. Cupcakes cooling and went back to the tea milk to check how that was doing and remove the teabags. Things hadn't gone to plan and the milk had looked like it had curdled slightly as it seemed to have flecks in it. I strained the teabags and give it a mix first before deciding what to do with it. Seems that fate made the decision for me, as when I squeezed the final of the three teabags it burst and tea leaves spilled into the milk mixture so I had to start again regardless. This time I made sure to give it a stir every so often and not just leave it like before and this seemed to do the trick in getting it combined and smooth.

Whisked the icing sugar and butter together then added the milk mixture it. It was a reddish/pink colour, not violet like before. Think this is because it was brewed with the actual teabags and not the tea like the milk mixture for the sponge. The lack of eggs might have also been a factor too. Either way it made the frosting a light pink colour in the end. All iced and the cupcakes looked and smelt fab, although you could see a slight blue hue through the casings.

The first to taste one was actually the 4 year old daughter of my friend who popped over just after they had been completed. She knows I bake a lot and always have cupcakes around so asked for one the minute she was through the door. It seemed to go down a treat, even the icing, which surprised me as some of the other cupcakes she has sampled, the icing was a bit too strong for her. I tucked into a cake afterwards and have to say they were yummy but the sponge colour as a grey/blue and did look a bit off putting. My friend did decline my kind offer of a cupcake due to this, just couldn't sway her..oh well more for me then!