February 2021 - Teas The Season

Enjoying Together

An Early Lesson in Rooibos Tea

February 22, 2021
A tea or not to be….

A true tea comes from the Camellia Sinesis plant and is divided into 6 true teas – black, green, oolong, pu-erh, yellow and white. The difference in these teas is based on the way the leaves are dried, oxidized, fermented and prepared. But in recent years, non-traditional “teas” have gained popularity. These “teas” are known as tisanes, teas made from berries, roots, spices and that do not contain any Camellia Sinesis. Let’s have an early lesson in Rooibos Teas.

One of my favorite tisanes is a type known as Rooibos, pronounced “roy-boss”. So Rooibos teas are not a true tea.

Rooibos means red bush and comes from a broom-like plant grown in South Africa. The leaves of the bush are used to make the tea we have come to know as Rooibos. Other names for Rooibos are bush tea, red tea, or redbush tea. Rooibos has been popular for generations in South Africa and in the 2000’s has been gaining popularity. The tea has a taste and color somewhat similar to hibiscus tea.

And one of the great benefits of any Rooibos tea is that it is naturally decaffeinated…a tea that can be enjoyed in the afternoon and evening without concern that you will be wide awake! For that reason, I like to use Rooibos teas as my dessert selection during a tea.

There are three types of Rooibos teas – Rooibos Tea, Green Rooibos, and Flavored Rooibos. I am most familiar with Flavored Rooibos and so will be highlighting four of my favorites. But first let’s talk about preparation.

How to prepare and serve Rooibos Tea

Rooibos tea is steeped the same way you would prepare a black tea. Your water should be hot (not boiling) with a temperature of 212 degrees and steeped for 3-5 minutes. I use one teaspoon of tea per cup and steep my Rooibos tea 4 minutes.

Rooibos is served in a similar manner as a black tea and is commonly prepared in the same manner, usually without or with a little milk, and/or sugar or honey. Other methods include a slice of lemon and using honey instead of sugar to sweeten. Like other teas, Rooibos can also be served as an espresso, lattes, or iced (a favorite for sure).

Here are some of the Rooibos teas that I enjoy the most. Like with any tea tasting, I will be using the same methodology I have before – Tea Tasting for the Daily Enthusiast.

Tea Tasting for the Daily Enthusiast Download

Georgia Peach Rooibos

This is definitely one of my favor Rooibos teas. It is absolutely exquisite! The color is a gorgeous dark amber red and the flavor of peach comes through this delicious tea. This tea contains Rooibos, Blackberry leaves, Calendula petals, peach pieces and other natural flavors. This tea is steeped for 4 minutes. I like to drink this tea without any additives or with a very little sugar. But not with milk – it diminishes the taste of the peach. Not only in its hot form, but Georgia Peach Rooibos is excellent iced. Served with a little slice of fresh peach, Georgia Peach Rooibos should become one of your favorite iced teas.

Georgia Peach Rooibos being enjoyed in a Royal Stafford Bone China Made In England teacup – Dog Wood pattern.
Rooibos Provence

I first tried Rooibos Provence several years ago in a tearoom in Delaware. And I fell in love with it and have enjoyed Rooibos Provence ever since. It is a lavish and elegant tea with a floral and fruity bouquet laced with delicate perfumy lavender notes. Inspired by Provence, France this tea contains luxury ingredients Rooibos, Rosehip, Elderberry, Blueberry, Lavender and Rose petals. I like to drink this tea without anything added to it. Occasionally, I might add a little sugar but generally I drink this plain. A great evening tea to relax and put your feet up.

Rooibos Provence being enjoyed in a Haviland Limoges teacup made in France and in the Bergeres pattern.
Godiva Roche Rooibos

Godiva Roche Rooibos is a rich and delicious rooibos tea. Made from rooibos and enhance with Cacao bean pieces, Calendula + Sunflower petals, Natural flavors. As you drink this tea, you taste those hints of chocolate and hazelnut. A great dessert tea, Godiva Roche Rooibos is a decadent tea taken just by itself. To take it to the next level, add a little sugar and some milk – it brings out all the flavors of these blend. Also great as a latte…..enjoy Godiva Roche Rooibos.

Godiva Roche Rooibos is being enjoyed in a Roya Standard Bone China made in England teacup.
Lemon Souffle Rooibos

Lemon Souffle Rooibos is a fragrant, sweet, and comforting blend of rooibos, honey bush, lemon cream taste with lemon bits. When you drink this tea, you get that blend of lemon with cream. The lemon is not overpowering and gives this Rooibos a rich and beautiful flavor. A little sugar enhances the lemon richness. I will serve this as a dessert tea for my spring or garden afternoon teas. Always a surprise and delight for my guests.

Lemon Souffle Rooibos is being enjoyed in a Okura Japanese teacup.
Tisane Enjoyment….

So now that you understand the difference between true tea and tisane, step out and enjoy some delicious brews of Rooibos. The adventure of teas is that it allows you so many choices of what to drink and how to prepare. Whether drinking alone to have that moment of reprise, or sharing with a friend or serving at an afternoon function, Rooibos teas offer a great variation in choices. And isn’t that the beauty of teas……..
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Beth 2 Comments
Recipes

How To Make Chocolate Madeleines

February 8, 2021
Want to take a basic recipe and make it into a special favorite? This is how to make Chocolate Madeleines from a basic recipe. Perfect for Valentine’s, these madeleines are easy to make into some chocolate goodness. You may have already seen those beautiful golden madeleines that have spurred the age-old question….Is it a cookie or a cake? These have the same texture but are laden with chocolate flavors.

But what are these little delights. The story goes that, in 1755, Louis XV, son-in-law of the duke, was charmed by the little cakes prepared by Madeleine Paulmier, thus the name. And the rest is history.

Madeleines are shell-shaped delicious cookies that have a nice crunchy exterior with an amazing cake texture….thus the quandary. You will need that special madeleine pan that is just for making these cookies. I went with a non-stick one. There are several types to choose from.

So in search of a Valentine’s treat, I found this super easy and great recipe by the Pioneer Woman for just a basic madeleine. So full credit goes to Rea Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, for the foundation of this recipe and how to make chocolate madeleines. Flavored with vanilla and almond extract, these delights seemed like the great baseline to have some fun with. Here’s what I did to change them up a bit.

Ingredients

Here’s the ingredients and the items that I added (bolded).
- Unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering the pan
- All purpose flour, plus extra for flouring the pan
- Dark cocoa powder and semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Kosher salt
- Baking powder
- Eggs
- Sugar
- Vanilla Bean Paste
- Almond Extract
- Semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
Putting them together

These cookies come together easily as compared to other madeleine recipes.

Take the butter and melt it in a pan, allowing it to bubble and foam. Let this cool.
While the butter is cooling, take your dry ingredients and mix them together. Set them aside while you prepare the egg mixture.

In your electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until you achieve this thick and pale yellow mixture. This takes about 6 – 8 minutes. Its actually very beautiful as it transitions. Add your extracts. The combination of the vanilla and almond make a great pairing with chocolate.

Fold half of your dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Then the butter and remaining flour. Cover the bowl and place in your refrigerator to cool for 1 hour. The batter will thicken while its is chilling.
Preheat your oven and get the pan ready.

Preparing the pan

These pans are great. They come in smaller sizes as well but I have always used the standard size. Using your pastry brush, coat the cavity liberally with butter and then dust with flour. You want the pan to be well coated so the cookies will come out. Otherwise they will get caught in the ridges of the pan.
Place 1 tablespoon of batter in each of the cookie cavities – its a great firm batter. You don’t need to spread the batter – this happens in the oven. Place the cookies in the oven and bake for 12 minutes or until they spring back lightly to touch. And they do – its glorious.
Take out of the oven and using a fork, gently lift the edges up and the cookie should come right out. Let them cool on a rack completely.

I decided to do stripes on the cookies instead of the traditional dipping. Not sure why I broke tradition, but they turned out delicious. I melted the chocolate chips in the microwave and then put the chocolate in a plastic bottle and striped the cookies. You could use a plastic bag or piping bag as well. And you could even just use your fork to do a splatter stripe on the cookie.
Lessons Learned…..

If you have read some of my other posts, you know I like to try new recipes and change things but I also like to share my “lessons learned” with you. Learning every time I make something new or change something, I hope that these skips and bumps help you in some way.

Freezing….not so good! I like to freeze everything. Make ahead and freeze has been my motto but I found that with these, it changed the texture of the cookies. they became very dense. They didn’t deter me from eating them but they didn’t have that classic fluffy madeleine texture. So I would not recommend freezing them.

Chocolate Stripe instead of Dipping…..I wanted something a little different than the usual dip, though I have been told “dip the whole thing – I love chocolate”. I chose to do a little diagonal stripe across the top. Now if you have frozen these little gems, the chocolate doesn’t adhere well. Looks great but comes off in chunks, so I would as I said before, not freeze. Dip or decorate once cooled, and the chocolate will adhere.

Serving

In any case, even with the “lessons learned”, these little cookies were delicious and a treat to serve. Steep up a nice hot cup of Godiva Roche Rooibos tea or your favorite tea. It will go great with the chocolate and almond flavors in these cookies. Grab your sweetheart, make a batch of Chocolate Madeleines….and you have a sweet Valentine’s treat.
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Chocolate Madeleines

A cookie or a cake, these delicious version of the classic madeleines loaded with chocolate flavor.

Course Cookies
Keyword chocolate, madeleines

Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 12 minutes
Refrigerating dough 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 42 minutes

Servings 24 cookies

Ingredients
10 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp unsalted butter, for buttering the pan
1 cup sifted all purpose flour
2 tbsp all purpose flour, for flouring the pan
¼ tsp Kosher salt
½ tsp baking powder
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tbsp semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 eggs, room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
½ tsp almond extract
⅔ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, for glaze

Instructions
Melt 10 tbsp butter over medium heat. Cook butter over medium – low heat stirring frequently while it foams and bubbles. After about 5 minutes, remove from heat and allow to cool.
Whisk sifted flour, salt, baking powder, cocoa and chocolate chips. Set aside.
In an electric mixer, on medium high speed, beat the eggs and sugar for 6-8 minutes until thickened and pale yellow. Beat in the vanilla bean paste and the almond extract.
Gently fold in ½ of the flour mixture. Fold in the butter. Add the remaining flour and fold gently until incorporated. Cover the bowl with plastic and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 375°. Using your pastry brush, coat each cavity of the madeleine pan. Dust with flour, tapping off the excess.
Remove the batter from the refrigerator but do NOT stir. Place a heaping tablespoon of batter into each cavity. Do NOT spread the batter – this will happen in the oven. Place the remaining batter in the refrigerator in between baking cookies.
Place the cookies in the oven and lower the temperature to 350°. Bake for 12 minutes or until the cookie springs back to touch.
Remove from the oven and using a fork, lightly loosen the cookie out of the pan. Allow the cookie to cool completely on the rack.
Take the ⅔ cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and melt in microwave. Using a pastry bag, or plastic bottle, place stripes of chocolate across the cookie.
Store cooled madeleines in airtight containers, layering with waxed paper.

Notes
This recipe was adapted from The Pioneer Woman.
I do not recommend freezing these cookies – it changes the texture and makes them dense….still delicious but not like a madeleine.

Equipment
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Beth 2 Comments
Recipes

Making Cucumber Finger Sandwiches

February 1, 2021
The cucumber sandwich is the quintessential tea time finger sandwich for anyone who enjoys afternoon tea. Making cucumber finger sandwiches is easy and just as fun but let’s first talk about the classic basic cucumber finger sandwich.

The first course in an afternoon tea is known as the savories and one of the keystone sandwiches is a simple cucumber sandwich. Though cucumbers have been around for centuries, the use of them in sandwiches first started with the advent of afternoon tea in the 1800’s. Serving a light meal in between breakfast and dinner, afternoon tea gave royalty and upper class the sustenance to maintain until the evening meal. Composed of small items, finger sandwiches and in particular cucumber sandwiches were a frequent and now expected item for the menu.

Basic Cucumber Finger Sandwich

The basic cucumber sandwich is a very simple sandwich of thinly sliced cucumbers on thinly sliced and lightly buttered bread. The bread can be your choice, but the classic sandwich is usually white bread. the crusts are removed and the sandwich cut into three small finger sandwiches.

Basic ingredients are white bread – I like to use a firm but not rustic bread. Pepperidge Farms has a nice sliced loaf that is fairly dense. You can sometimes find it in the thin slices. Butter and an English Cucumber. If you are using unsalted butter, then you can add a little touch of salt to the sandwich. Don’t peel or seed the cucumber – you want the vibrant color to come through.

Prepare your cucumbers. You want thin slices. I like to use my mandoline on the lowest setting but you can use a sharp knife as well.

Lightly butter one side of the bread. Make sure your butter is room temperature. Then layer the thinly sliced cucumber slices on the bread. Add a light dash of salt and top with a second light buttered slice of bread.
Putting The Sandwiches Together
Cut the crusts off the sandwich and then slice the sandwich into three finger-sized portions. Use a serrated knife. You are now ready to enjoy your cucumber tea sandwiches.
Variations On A Theme

But wait…..there are endless variations on this theme. You can switch out the butter for cream cheese, add dill or other seasonings, try different breads and even alter the shape to fit the occasion. Literally endless variations on the fugue, only limited by your imagination.

Here’s a basic cream cheese version along with some of my favorite variations on the cucumber tea sandwich.

Cream Cheese Filling Variation

Use one 8 ounce package of cream cheese at room temperature.

Take your cucumber and cut it in half. Use one half of the cucumber for your slices. The other half for the cream cheese mixture.

You will want to seed the cucumber before adding to the cream cheese. Cucumbers have a high water content and it will make your cream cheese spread too watery. Seeding a cucumber is very easy. Slice the length of the cucumber and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds.

Chop up the cucumber and add the dill and cream cheese to a food processor. Blend till mostly smooth – I like a little chunkiness to it.

Its that simple. Refrigerate this mixture until ready to use. When ready, just spread on your bread like you would the butter and then embellish as desired.

Serving and Enjoying

These sandwiches can be made several hours ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. I will lightly dampen a paper towel and lay it on the bottom of my plastic container. Then lay the sandwiches in a single layer. Cover with another damp paper towel. The sandwiches will stay fresh and not dry out until its time for service.

Serve your sandwiches along side your other savories and enjoy!

Some Fun Ideas To Try

I have used different breads – classic white bread with a dense texture, pumpernickel, gluten free bread and even raisin bread.

Using my cookie cutters, I have made mushroom shaped with a tomato lady bug for the Midsummer Night’s Tea . For Christmas, I took a Christmas tree cookie cutter and embellished with fresh dill.
A garden tea I used a square theme with cucumber, dill and radishes. A delicious fresh taste. And of course for that Valentine’s Tea, a heart shaped cookie cutter with a tomato rose on top.
Making cucumber finger sandwiches is easy and fun and will make your afternoon tea a very special time. Have fun and enjoy!

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Beth 2 Comments