Tuesday afternoon tea cupcake

My passion for baking for baking was ignited this summer (this is an incredibly cliched sentence). I started with Clotilde's (of Chocolate & Zucchini) chocolate and zucchini cake. It was amazingly delicious both times I baked it. I also baked a yogurt cake (also from Clotilde's cookbook), breads, cookies, and now cupcakes. I've baked cupcakes before this point but with help from a mix.

The Tuesday afternoon tea cupcake recipe is based on two recipes: (1) plain cupcake by Lillian at cheflillian.com and (2) lime tea cupcake by Mary at alpineberry.blogspot.com. The recipe is my entry for Cupcake Roundup II, sponsored by Cheryly at Cupcake Bakeshop and Garrett at Vanilla Garlic.



Ingredients
1 1/4 cup unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt (I used ground grosso salt)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I used Thai cinnamon)
8 tablespoons butter, room temperature
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
11/12 cup whole milk
2 1/2 teaspoons of loose leaf Assam

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Heat milk then remove from heat and add tea. Let steep for 15 minutes. Sieve the liquid to remove the tea leaves.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Mix together butter and sugar until incorporated.
5. Add one egg at a time to the butter-sugar mix, incorporate thoroughly.
6. Add dry ingredients to the butter-sugar-egg mix in two batches. Alternate the dry batches with the milk tea.
7. Fill each cupcake cup halfway. (I used a silicon cupcake cup sheet.)
8. Bake for approximately 20 minutes.



My batter yielded 10 cupcakes. Serve the cupcakes with cinnamon and a cup of (Assam) tea. Note: I baked my cupcakes on Sunday, but ate most of them on Tuesday (and Wednesday), by which time the flavors had fully melded.