GF Chocolate Mint Tea Infused Cake

I have been participating in the SABH Blog Hop for as long as I can remember, I think my first entry might have been the chocolate Pavlova recipe, with Pavlova being the theme. I was so excited to find other like minded food bloggers' and a place to share my passion/love of food. The monthly blog hop with a specific topic has at times challenged me, got my creative juices flowing. The third week of every month is definitely something that I look forward to every month.


http://84thand3rd.com/2012/05/21/macha-green-tea-cupcakes/
This month when JJ announced that the theme was tea, I have to admit I was a bit unsure, where to start, this wasn't your traditional ingredients in a cake. But I was excited it pushed me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to extend myself with my cooking abilities. When I came to the conclusion of what I was cooking and shared the decision with one of my good friends, who is a chef, he was very impressed, it was then that I knew that I was onto a good thing, the flavour combination would work wonderful, a perfect marriage.
I had already settled on making a chocolate cake, this was not a recipe that I had made before I was adapting it from a plain cake recipe I had made previously, instead of adding vanilla I added 1/3 cup of sifted cocoa to the cake to make it chocolate.

Since I was a little girl I have loved peppermint, I always sifted through chocolate boxes looking for the peppermint ones. Now, as an adult I love to drink peppermint tea, particularly after a heavy meal, I find it quick refreshing and cleansing. I was fortunate enough to have a sample mix of Cool Mint Green Tea from A Touch of Tea in Bowral www.atouchoftea.com.au, I decided that instead of adding warm milk as the recipe called for, I added warm Cool Mint Green Tea. The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons of warm milk, I added 6 tablespoons of Cool Mint Green Tea, to ensure the cake was moist and not dry, like alot of gluten free cakes.

The consistency of the cake was like a thick fudge, don't worry this is how it is meant to be. The cake takes 20 minutes on 180 degrees Celsius, I made sure that I took the cake out when some of the crumbs were clinging to the skewer, this ensured that the cake was moist and stayed moist for more than one day.

I have to be honest and say that this was the most moist gluten free cake I have made since I have been baking gluten free! This is definitely a cake I recommend that you make, if you don't have access to the tea, I'm sure peppermint tea would make a nice mix.

GF Chocolate Mint Tea Infused Cake

Ingredients:
125g butter (softened)
1/2 cup caster
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup gf self raising flour
1/3 cup rice flour
1/3 cup gf cornflour
1 1/2 teaspoons gf baking powder
1/3 cup cocoa
6 tablespoons Cool Mint Green Tea

Method:
Preheat over to 180 degree Celsius. With electric mixer cream butter and sugar until smooth and light. Add eggs individually and beat well. Sift the flours, cocoa and baking powder into the butter mixture and mix, add tea to make a thick batter (the consistency of brownies, fairly thick). Spoon the mixture into a greased and lined 20cm tin. Bake for 20 minutes, until skewer comes out with cake clinging onto it, this means that it will be moist and delicious. Place on a wire rack, cool and ice.

Icing:
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon sifted cocoa
2 tablespoons milk

Method:
With butter softened mix all the ingredients in a bowl, add icing sugar or milk if needed. Using a spoon and knife ice over the top and side of the cake. Leave to set and eat.

The lovely Jennifer at Delicieux is running a great comp to win a free stand mixer valued at $749, see her blog for details.

I am very excited to announce that in the next few days I will be running my 1st Birthday competition. Thanks to some amazing GF Food companies including Mammee, Basco, Bounce Bars, Florida's Natural Fruit Nuggets, Amaranth and Quinoa The Lost Cereal, and more I have a mammoth amount of food to give away. Unfortunately as it is food and due to custom laws it will only be available to my Australian readers, sorry to all my international readers. I wish that I was a reader of my blog so I could enter, it has taken temptation not to eat all the wonderful food that I have in my house for some very lucky readers!