Cup O' Tea Vegan/Wheat-Free Ice Cream Cupcake by Tara Tabassi

Tara Tabassi does not have her own blog so this is her entry to the Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup.

Cup O' Tea is a vanilla cupcake speckled with fresh Earl Grey tea, spread with creamy white chocolate, topped with a fresh coconut, lemon-rind and blueberry ice cream, piped with rich lavender butter-cream frosting, and sprinkled with lavender-blossom sugar. It is completely Vegan and Wheat-free and I made everything myself except the white-chocolate.

The Earl-Grey vanilla cupcake is adapted from "VCTOW= Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" where I made a mixture of coconut, rice, rye and potato starch flours and added 2 tbsp of freshly ground Earl Grey to the mixture (During baking, the tea starts to brew and seeps into the cake with an intense flavour and pretty colour!) I spread a layer of melted white rice-milk chocolate on top. The ice cream is a simple coconut ice cream flavored with lemon rind, and mixed with some blueberries for the colour. The frosting is also adapted from "VCTOW" where I infused the soymilk with a handful of dried lavender blossoms and then added some blueberry juice that I strained from cooked blueberries to make the pretty colour. Finally, I baked sugar, pink colouring and lavender blossoms on a low temperature to make the lavender sugar which I sprinkled on top!! I also made variations with dark chocolate flavoured with Earl-Grey, but the colour scheme was better with the white chocolate!

Cup O' Tea Recipe

Earl Grey Cupcakes
(adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World’s ‘Golden Vanilla Cupcakes’)

Ingredients
1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
¼ cup coconut flour
½ cup white rice flour
¼ cup potato starch
¼ cup rye flour
1 teaspoon xanthum gum
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons Earl Grey Tea (grind into fine powder with mortar and pestle)
½ cup non-hydrogenated margarine (softened)
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
1. Get really excited that you’re about to bake! Don your apron!
2. Preheat oven to 350◦F/ 180C and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.
3. Whisk the soymilk and vinegar in a cup and set aside to curdle (and have a kid stare wide-eyed at it as it changes!)
4. Sift flours, starches, baking powder and soda, salt and ground tea in a large bowl. Stir.
5. In a separate bowl, cream margarine and sugar for a few minutes (by mixer, or by hand if you don’t have a mixer like me!). Don’t over beat. Then beat in vanilla, and then alternate pouring a little soy milk and a little dry mixture while beating. Remember to stop and scrap the bowl every few minutes. (Either call over the kid to help for this, or use all four arms you have…)
6. Fill cupcake liners two-thirds of the way and bake for 20- 22 minutes until done. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool!

Lavender Butter-cream Frosting
(adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World’s ‘Vegan Fluffy Butter-cream Frosting”)

Ingredients
½ cup non-hydrogenated shortening
½ cup non-hydrogenated margarine
3 ½ cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons dried lavender blossoms
¼ cup plain soy milk
Handful of fresh blueberries

Directions
1. The night before; heat the soymilk in a cup and add the lavender blossoms to it. Let sit and steep overnight
2. Beat the shortening and margarine together until well combined and fluffy.
3. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 minutes.
4. Add the vanilla and the lavender infused soy milk, and beat for 5 to 7 minutes until fluffy.
5. Heat the berries on the stove in a tiny amount of water until they change colour to ‘blue’- squeeze the berries in your hand, dropping juice into the frosting and stir until a pretty lavender colour is reached.

Fresh Coconut Ice-cream

Ingredients
(these amounts are very tentative, change as you go to fit your own taste)
2 cans of Coconut Milk (the kind where the juice and cream separates in the can, or if you can find it, it’s better to use 1 can of Coconut full-cream for richer flavour)
¾ cup superfine sugar
2 lemons
1 orange
Handful of blueberries (I just used the pulpy ones left from juicing in the frosting)

Directions
1. Empty the tops of the coconut cans into a blender (or full can of coconut cream), add sugar and blend.
2. Zest the 2 lemons, juice the orange and one of the lemons into the blender and mix.
3. Slowly add berries until a pretty colour forms.
4. Put in your ice-cream maker and Enjoy!! 

Crystallized Lavender Blossom

Ingredients
1 cup of hot water
3 tablespoons dried lavender blossoms (and a handful)
A few drops of food colouring (although if I did this again, I would use some beet juice!)

Directions
1. Steep the blossoms in the water until flavour is infused.
2. Strain out the blossoms and add colouring and a fresh handful of dried blossoms.
3. Pour the mixture in a foil-covered baking dish and bake on low until crispy.
4. When cool, break up into cute little crystallized pieces.