Honey Vanilla Tea Cupcakes with Honey buttercream frosting

Recipe by me!

I did it. I made my own cupcake recipe! I never thought the day would come.

There is hot water in the recipe and there is a reason for it! A couple of weeks ago made chocolate cupcakes and hot water was added to the recipe. I had never seen it added before, but I believe it helps the chocolate bloom, so I decided to add it to this recipe because I wanted the cake to be infused with tea and the hot water “blooms” the tea. I thought about pulling the tea from the tea bag and grinding it, then adding to the batter but I didn’t want the little bits of tea in the batter so I chose to steep the tea and by golly it worked out.

Taste- The cake itself isn’t too sweet but the frosting is pretty sweet which is why I didn’t want the cake to be super sweet. I think it’s a nice combo of vanilla, tea and honey! Cool explanation… Just make the cupcakes to see what I’m talking about!

This recipe makes 21-22 cupcakes

Tools needed:

Cupcake or muffin tin

Stand mixer or hand mixer

Cupcake liners

If you want to pipe the frosting you need:

Piping bag

Piping tip I used this tip

Cupcake Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 eggs (room temp)

1/2 cup of veggie oil

1/2 cup of whole milk

1.5 teaspoons of vanilla extract

2 bags Honey Vanilla Camomile Tea

1 cup of boiling water to steep tea

Pam or some sort of spray type oil (used for the cupcake liners so the cake doesn’t stick)

Honey Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

4 cups of powder sugar

2 sticks of butter

5-8 Tablespoons of heavy whipping cream

2-4 teaspoons of honey (depends on how much you like honey)

2 teaspoons of vanilla bean paste

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 350

2.Fill a measuring cup with boiling water and put both bags of tea in it. Let it steep while you are mixing ingredients

3.Put cupcake liners in tin and then spray with oil. This helps the cake not stick! I’ve tried not spraying and the cake sticks to the bottom of the liner. It really bugs me. Use the spray oil.

4.Mix, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl set aside

5.Add eggs, oil, milk, and vanilla extract in another and whisk until combined

6.Then add wet ingredients to dry and fold everything in. You don’t want to over mix it! The cupcakes will be tough. Mix until it looks like a paste

7.Add hot tea to mixture and carefully fold in. It’s hot so be careful!

8.The batter will be a little runny but it’s ok!

9.Once most lumps are gone, you can spoon batter into cupcake liners and fill 2/3 full.

10.Bake at 350 for 15-16 minutes. Insert toothpick into the middle of the cupcake If there is no batter on the stick- they are done

11.Pull cupcakes from tin and let cook on a wire rack

12.While cupcakes are cooling- add half of the butter and half of the powdered sugar to the stand mixer (use the paddle tool) and 2 tablespoons of heavy cream and mix until semi-combined. (I put a clean towel over the bowl while it is mixing because powdered sugar will get everywhere)

13.Once the frosting is half way mix add the rest of the butter, sugar, vanilla bean paste, honey and 4 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream. The heavy cream helps combine the frosting.

I’m guessing you will need around 7ish tablespoons. If the frosting gets too runny add more powered sugar. If it’s too dry add heavy cream 1 tablespoon at at time.

You can pipe frosting on or you can use a butter knife to swirl around the frosting! If you want to pipe I have some resources below.

To pipe:

Put tip at the bottom of the piping bag

Add frosting

Cut tip of piping bag so the air is released and then squeeze down frosting

I’m not an expert at piping things so here is a tutorial if you want to get fancy haha sorry! But honestly just have fun with it! You are eating it so it doesn’t need to be perfect.

Drizzle extra honey on top if you want and you are done!