Chai is a great mix of spices, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves sometimes other spices can be included such as all spice, turmeric and more. It gives a warm flavour and scent which is great in shortbread.
I have come across earl grey shortbread recipes in the past and other variations on the shortbread but decided to go with a classic shortbread recipe and modify it myself. In this case I just added in some black tea I had.
Christmas baking in our house was a hallowed tradition as our grandmother arrived with her little box of recipes, each painstakingly written out on a a little index card in tiny precise handwriting, and each a closely guarded secret to be passed on only very late in our grandmother’s life.
Ceremonial matcha seems to be the highest grade and quality of matcha. This matcha is made from the youngest leaves with the veins and stems removed. This is a sweeter tasting matcha. This is quite common in stores when buying matcha to whisk with hot water to form a drink.
This summer during my Maritime trip and tea run I came across oat cakes. I didn’t actually buy any or try any but they brought back memories of trying them in Glasgow, Scotland ages ago. So made a mental note and when I got back home decided I’d try and find a recipe. I found a few and then decided to modify them slightly to incorporate some tea in some way. I found this great Masala Chai spice mix in Toronto and decided to use that as the spice for the oat cake instead of adding just cinnamon and nutmeg. I think it’s a nice touch and chai spices always make the kitchen smell nice!
I was thinking about the salad dressings my mother would make. Always some kind of vinaigrette with various herbs and spices shaken with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. That’s when the idea of using tea came to mind. I wanted to try and make a creamy dressing so I found this basic creamy dressing base and stared playing around with adding tea. I tried steeping tea and adding it in resulting in watery dressing. Eventually I settled on just adding the tea leaves and I think the result isn’t too bad. I will keep working on different salad dressings, creamy and vinaigrette and see what I can come up with. I think they type of tea is quite flexible. All teas will result in a lovely flavour and compliment to any salad.
