I’m a coffee person but if I’m going to have a tea it will usually be Earl Grey or a London Fog latte. I got to thinking how the taste of that robustly flavored black tea drink might work in a tea loaf cake. It’s floral and citrusy notes seemed like it would be a great flavor profile for a dessert so I got to work to make a simple loaf cake with perfect texture and flavor and totally vegan!
What do I need to make it?
While the ingredients are pretty standard for a loaf cake, there are a few special ingredients you’ll need to make this cake.
- Earl Grey black tea. You can use bagged tea or loose leaf but you’ll need to process it to get it to a fine texture.
- Vegan yogurt or sour cream. Both work well here just use a thicker style vegan yogurt or a thinner style vegan sour cream. If I have sour cream that’s too thick, I will often thin it out with a bit of plain vegan milk or cream to the right consistency.
- Orange juice and zest. You can use bottled juice but fresh orange zest makes the cake sing. You could use orange extract instead but fresh is best. Lemon zest and juice can also be substituted if need be but orange is my preference.
This cake can be made in a loaf pan but could be made in a square baking pan or even as muffins or cupcakes. It’s has a rich thick simple glaze and I also added a few decorative pinches or tea leaves for an added flourish but it’s not necessary. This cake also uses the reverse creaming method I often use in my recipes. More about that after the jump.
What is reverse creaming?
Reverse creaming refers to the method of combining ingredients in this recipe. Normally, sugar is creamed with the fat and other wet ingredients first, then the dry ingredients are added afterwards. In the reverse creaming method, the dry ingredients are mixed together first with the fat in the recipe to coat them making them harder to form gluten strands which often makes cakes tough. The rest of the wet ingredients are then added and the beauty of this method is that you don’t have to be as gentle with the batter as you won’t be able to easily form gluten after the flour has been coated with fat. This is a great mixing method for novice bakers or kids. Cakes can often be intimidating to some to make as if you over mix the batter (and it’s hard for some to know the correct texture if you’re inexperienced) the cake doesn’t rise as well and the bake is tough.
I hope you enjoy this delicious cake. It’s perfect for tea lovers and great on a rainy day when you’re dreaming of the misty streets on London. Don’t forget to rate and review if you try it guv’ner!
I’ve made this five times in the past month and it’s great every time. I’ve taken it to work, dropped it off for workers at the local animal shelter and made it for my non- vegan family. They all raved. I didn’t have Earl gray tea so I used Chamomile and it worked too. I tried both vegan sour cream and vegan yogurt and both were great. The only thing I will say is that I’ve made it 5x and it never comes out as pretty as this picture but it tastes good!
Love that! Thank you so much for the kind review and I’m sure they looked beautiful!
I wonder if a treat like this could be made without gluten OR sugar. 🤔 of course it wouldn’t be near the same…but I miss things like this.