Leaf Recipes: Pumpkin Spiced Chai Pudding

Halloween flew by us this year. Touching up on the prototypes, finishing our first recipe book, and doing promoting work in Shanghai (we’ll have that in a separate post soon!).

While the Canadian Thanksgiving is long gone, we can still look forward to the American Thanksgiving coming up in the next few weeks. It’s our last chance for pumpkin!

Today’s recipe is a smooth and extremely pumpkin-y pudding. Great for pumpkin lovers, but for those who are iffy about pumpkin, don’t come back later telling us we didn’t warn you about the pumpkin 😉

Pumpkin Spiced Chai Pudding (makes 4-5)

• 250 grams of pumpkin puree
• 200 ml of strong brew of black tea
• 100 ml of evaporated milk
• 70 ml of whipping cream
• 75 grams of sugar
• 1 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of allspice
• 1 pack of gelatin

1. Brew the tea
2. Bloom the gelatin (according the package instructions)
3. In a microwavable boil, microwave the pumpkin puree for 30 seconds. Past the puree through a sieve into a large bowl
4. In a sauce pan, add the brewed tea, evaporated milk, whipping cream, sugar, cinnamon, and allspice. Turn off the heat immediately when the mixture reaches a boil
5. Add the gelatin into the saucepan, and let it melt
6. Gradually pour the hot milk tea mixture into the large bowl through a sieve. Gently stir to combine
7. Let the mixture cool slightly before dividing it into serving containers
8. Refrigerate until firm. Serve with whip cream and a sprinkle of clove!

Leaf Recipes: Milk Tea Pudding

We served this to some of our clients the other day, and they absolutely loved it. Asking us for the recipe, we decided to share it online.

The classic milk tea is after all a staple drink in Hong Kong, particularly to the working class spectrum of the population. But this milk tea pudding brings the drink to a whole other level. Top it with some fresh whip cream, and sprinkle it a bit of cocoa powder, you’re sure to wow a party (especially if they are milk tea lovers like us). 😉

For this recipe, we used both whole leaf tea leaves and a tea bag. The whole leaf tea leaves give the milk tea a nice flavour base, while the tea bag gives this dessert a more complex tea flavour and a pretty orange colour.

Milk Tea Pudding (serves 4-6)

• 225 ml + 2tbsp* of strong brew of black tea
• 55 ml of evaporated milk
• 140 ml of whipping cream
• 50 grams of sugar
• one pack of gelatin (approx 7 grams)
• one black tea bag
• fresh whipped cream (optional)

*used to dissolve the gelatin

1. Brew the tea
2. In a sauce pan, heat the whipping cream right before it starts to boil. Turn the heat to low, place the tea bag into the sauce pan, and cover for 4 minutes
3. Once the tea is brewed, dissolve the gelatin using 2 tbsp of hot black tea. Set aside
4. Pour the evaporated milk, 225ml of tea, and sugar into the sauce pan. Stir to combine
5. Once the sugar is completely dissolved, turn off the heat and add the dissolved gelatin into the mixture
6. Let the mixture cool slightly before dividing it into prepared containers/glassware. For a smoother pudding, straining the mixture is recommended
7. Let the pudding cool down in room temperature
8. Once cool, cover and refrigerate until the mixture sets (4-6 hours)
9. Once set, serve with fresh whipped cream if desired
10. Enjoy!

 

Leaf Recipes: Cinnamon Rum Milk Tea

As we enter into November, the weather  has been getting progressively chillier.

Or not… Hong Kong is still rather warm, but according to our team over at the Shanghai office, the temperature has been gradually dropping.

Well, today’s drink is dedicated to the folks in Shanghai who have been working hard finalizing the technicalities for our prototype. Overtiming on weekday nights and weekends continuously for the past month, a drink or two (or three) is definitely well deserved.

A milk tea laced with rum, this fragrant milk tea is the perfect relaxation drink for fall.

We’ll leave the rum amount to your own personal tastes 😉

Cinnamon Rum Milk Tea (serves 1)

• 200ml strong brew of black tea (brewed with Leaf’s milk tea function)
• 1 1/2 tbsp of evaporated milk
• 2 tsp (or to taste) of brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, grounded
• 3 large marshmallows (optional)
• rum to your liking

1. Brew the tea
2. If using, place marshmallows in a mug, and pour the rum on top
3. Pour the brewed tea into a saucepan and heat on medium low
4. Put the evaporated milk, brown sugar, and ground cinnamon into the saucepan
5. Heat mixture until brown sugar is completely melted
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared mug
7. Stir and enjoy!

Leaf Recipes: Salted Cheese Cream Green Tea

I know what you’re thinking. Salted cheese cream topped on green tea? What kind of weird concoction is that?

At least that’s what we thought when we saw these babies popping up all over Taiwanese bubble tea chains in Hong Kong and Shanghai. But being tea obsessed as we are, we KNEW we HAD to try. And well, needless to say, after that first try, 3/5th of our team became hooked. (Some of our team members are iffy about cheese in general…)

The only thing we lamented about was the quality of the tea that was served up with this cheese concoction.

And so of course, without a second thought, we tried to make our own–with our Leaf Tea Maker of course.

After testing out various ingredients, we thought the one below was the best. So if you’re feeling adventurous, why not give it a try?

The cheese cream can be topped on almost anything. We’ve seen it on hot, cold, plain, and milk tea recipes.

Salted Cheese Cream Green Tea (serves 1)

• 200ml Cold Green Tea (Cold brewed with our Leaf Tea Maker 😉 )
• 1 tbsp of simple syrup (or to taste)
• 10 grams of soft cream cheese
• 15 grams of evaporated milk
• 15 grams of whipping cream
• generous pinch of coarse salt (we used DavidsTea Matcha Salt, but any would do)
• ice (optional)

1. Brew the green tea using the cold brew setting
2. Place the cream cheese in a bowl. With a mixer, gently beat the cream cheese on medium low, while gradually pouring the evaporated milk into the bowl
3. Continue to beat on medium low until there are no longer cream cheese chucks.
4. With the mixer still on medium low, add the whipping cream and mix until completely creamy. Be careful not to whip the cream to peaks
5. If using ice, add the desired ice into a tall glass
6. Once the tea is finished brewing, pour the tea into a glass
7. Top the tea with the cream, and sprinkle the salt on top.
8. To enjoy the tea to its fullest, avoid using a straw, and sip the drink 🙂

Leaf Recipes: Homemade Hojicha!

A Japanese friend of ours recently heard about our love for hojicha. Being a hojicha lover herself, she immediately contacted us, and taught us her recipe for homemade hojicha!

Thus today, with her permission, we’d like to sure this simple recipe on how to make hojicha! A fast and simple recipe, all you need is some green tea (preferably green tea leaves that still have their stalks attached) and a skillet of some sort.

What’s great about this recipe is that you can make however much or little hojicha as you want. Even a single portion of tea is fine. Also a great recipe to use on old green tea!

Before: (We used genmaicha for this 😉 )

 

After: Roasty Toasty!

Hojicha

• desired full leaf green tea (preferably with stalks attached)

1. Heat the skillet on high for 30 seconds
2. Turn the heat to medium high, and place the desired amount of green tea on the skillet
3. Using a wooden spatula, move the tea leaves around to avoid burning.
4. After 2 to 3 minutes, or until when the tea leaves start browning, turn the heat to medium, and mix and shake the skillet. If possible, try to toss the leaves around on the skillet.
5. When the leaves start to smoke, turn the heat to low and continue mixing the leaves with a wooden spatula for another 5-6 minutes, or until the leaves are dark and brown in colour.
6. Turn off the heat, and let the leaves cool in a clean metal tray. Once cool, you can store in a clean container.

 

Leaf Recipes: Milk Tea Cupcakes!

 

This cupcake is moist and packed with tea flavours! While delicious in it’s own right, we decided to complete the “milk tea” experience, by whipping up some milk butter cream and filling it with white chocolate ganache. Yum!

Milk Tea Cupcakes with Milk Buttercream and White Chocolate Ganache Filling (makes 10-12 cupcakes)

Cupcakes:

• 85 ml hot strong brew of black tea (we brewed ours using Leaf, mixing full leaf earl grey and tea dust)
• 40 ml of evaporated milk
• 1 tbsp of fine/grounded earl grey tea leaves
• 2 eggs
• 180 gram of cake flour
• 170 grams of sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 113 grams of soft unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1. Preheat oven at 170°C/350°F. Line muffin tin
2. Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together, set aside
3. Pour the evaporated milk into the hot tea to make milk tea, set aside
4. In a bowl, cream the butter on medium low until light in colour
5. With mixer on medium, gradually pour in the sugar, and beat until fully incorporated
6. With mixer on low, gradually add 1/2 of the milk tea and mix until incorporated. Add 1/2 of the flour mixture, and once again mix until incorporated.
7. Repeat above for remaining half of milk tea and flour. Once incorporated, beat on medium-high for 30 seconds.
8. Fold in the fine/grounded tea leaves with a spatula
9. Divide the cupcake batter into the lined muffin tin
10. Bake for 15-18 min, or until toothpick comes out almost clean (should have a bit of crumbs attached to the toothpick) when inserted into the cupcake
11. Let cupcakes cool completely on rack before decorating

White Chocolate Ganache:

• 30ml of heavy cream
• 56 grams of white chocolate

1. In double boiler, gently heat the heavy cream and melt the white chocolate
2. Once melted, remove from heat, and let it cool completely before using

Milk Butter Cream:

• 120 grams of soft unsalted butter
• 185 grams of icing sugar
• 4 tbsp of evaporated milk

1. Cream the butter until light and fluffy
2. With mixer on, gradually add 1/2 of the icing sugar, and mix until incorporated
3. With mixer still on, gradually pour in the evaporated milk, and mix until incorporated
4. With mixer still on, add the remaining sugar, and beat until well incorporated

To ensemble:

1. Using a knife, make a cone shape cut into each of the cupcakes. Remove the cut out piece, and remove the pointy end of the cone. You should now have a circular piece remaining. It will serve as the “lid” for when the cupcakes are filled
2. Fill the cupcakes with the white chocolate ganache (1 – 1 1/2 tsp should be enough). Replace the “lid” back on the cupcakes once they are filled
3. To top the cupcakes, either spread the butter cream on top of the cupcakes with a spoon/knife OR pipe with piping bag

 

Leaf Recipes: Homemade Chai Latte

This homemade chai latte is gold! Smooth, rich, and ever so more delicious when topped with fresh whip cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg, our team just can’t get enough of this drink!

Homemade Chai Latte (makes 1-2 cups)

• 300 ml of strong black tea
• 120 ml of evaporated milk
• 30-35 grams of brown sugar
• 1 tsp of cinnamon
• 1 tsp of ground ginger
• 1/4 of ground allspice
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• fresh whip cream (optional)
• pinch of nutmeg (optional)

1. Pour the evaporated milk into a small saucepan, and put in the brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and vanilla extract. Heat on medium-low until a low simmer, approximately 3-5 minutes
2. While the milk is heating, brew a strong brew of black tea
3. Once the tea is done, divide the tea into cups
4. Using a strainer, divide the milk into the cups, and stir.
5. If desired, top with fresh whip cream and a pinch of nutmeg
6. Serve immediately, and enjoy!

 

 

Leaf Recipes: Earl Grey Milk Cookie

 

While not the easiest of all cookies, these icebox cookies are definitely worth the effort. Crumbly and buttery, these cookies definitely bring out the *citrus* in earl grey tea.

Guests are always delighted whenever we take these out. A definite crowd winner indeed.

We made these with earl grey tea leaves, but these cookies can definitely be made with others.

Earl Grey Milk Cookie (makes approx 30 cookies)

• 150 grams of butter at room temperature
• 60 grams of sugar
• 225 grams of cake flour, sifted
• 3 grams of earl grey tea leaves (if using earl grey full leaves, slightly grind them up with a blender/mortar & pestle)
• 15 grams of condensed milk*

1. With an electric or stand mixer, beat the butter until light in colour
2. With the mixer still on, gradually add the sugar. Beat until the butter becomes light and fluffy
3. With a spatula, fold in 1/3 of the flour into the butter. Repeat two more times, adding 1/3 of the flour each time. Incorporate well (The dough should look slightly crumbly)
4. Take 150 grams of the dough and place it in a separate bowl
5. In the original bowl, mix in the earl grey leaves into the dough and form dough into a long cylinder with a 1 inch diameter. Wrap and place in freezer
6. In the bowl with the 150 grams of dough, mix in the condensed milk and form into a ball
7. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to form a flat rectangle with the same length as the cylindrical earl grey dough. This dough will be used to wrap the earl grey dough. Wrap and place in fridge  for about 15 minutes
8. Take out both doughs and wrap the milk dough around the earl grey dough, making sure that the milk dough is wrapped around the earl grey dough evenly
9. Wrap with saran wrap, and place in fridge for 30 minutes +
10. Preheat the oven at 170°C/340°F
11. Cut the dough to 1/4 inch slices at place on lined baking tray
12. Bake cookies for 15-17 minutes, or until the edges of the cookie become beige in colour
13. Cool on cookie rack. Serve with a cuppa tea!

*If you don’t have condensed milk on hand, you can easily make it. Simply:

• place 25 grams of milk and 10 grams of sugar into a saucepan
• With the heat on medium, continuous stir the milk mixture until desired thickness
• And done! Just let it cool down before using 😉

 

Leaf Recipes: Genmaicha Cookie

Today we bring you one of our favourite cookies!

There is perhaps no simpler cookie to make than this Genmaicha Cookie: all you need to do is mix the ingredients together. Also, with no butter, eggs, or milk, it is also relatively healthier than other cookies out there.

We stuffed ours we stored bought red bean, but you can easily just make this without 🙂

Crunchy and flaky in texture, a bite of this cookie will fill your senses with aromatic tea flavours (with some good quality tea leaves of course).

Genmaicha Cookies (makes approx 16-18)

• 4 grams of genmaicha
• 1 grams of matcha Powder
• 80 grams of all purpose flour
• 25 grams of corn starch
• 30 grams of sugar
• 40 grams of vegetable oil
• 100 grams of red bean paste (if using)
• icing sugar for dusting

1. With a mortar and pestle, ground the genmaicha until fine, and combine with the matcha powder
2. In a bowl, sift flour, corn starch, and sugar together. Add the grounded tea leaves into the bowl and stir the dry ingredients together with a spatula.
3. Pour the vegetable oil into the flour mixture, and stir until the dough comes together (add a bit more vegetable oil, if the dough doesn’t come together well)
4. Preheat the oven to 180°C/355°F and line baking tray with baking sheet
5. Divide the dough into 16-18 pieces. Shape the divided dough into balls. Place directly on baking tray if not adding red bean paste
6. If adding red bean paste, flatten each dough ball, and insert red bean paste in the middle. Wrap the dough around the red bean paste, and reshape into a ball
7. Bake cookies for 15-18 minutes. Let cookies cool on cookie rack.
8. Once cooled, dust with icing sugar. Serve with tea!

Super duper easy. Give it a try and let us know how it turns out! 😀

Leaf Recipes: Earl Grey Tea Latte

 

 

Ahh, the classic earl grey tea. Rich and deep in flavour, with hints of floral scent…

Legend goes that Lord Grey, British Prime Minister in the 1830’s, had saved a boy in China from drowning. The father, grateful as he was, presented some tea scented with bergamot oil. Smitten by the tea, the Lord attempted to produce it back in England for personal enjoyment. And of course, the tea gained popularity back at home, and soon personal production moved onward to commercial production, which is why we are able to enjoy this delicious tea at the present time. Or so the story goes.

But anyhow, while the story is untrue (as Lord Grey never visited China), the deep strong flavours of this tea are definitely a WIN when milk is added. The British have always done so. Even unconventional Hong Kong cha chaan tengs have often opted to blend a bit of Earl Grey into their milk tea tea bases.

However, today, we would like to bring you a cuppa Earl Grey Tea Latte instead of the conventional HK-Tea inspired milk teas that we often post on our blog. Different from standard milk teas or HK-Style Milk Tea, a tea latte is a strong brewed cup of tea, with hot steamed milk–usually near a ratio of 1:1.

(And you know… when any recipe calls for strong brewed tea, that’s when we know it’s time to whip out our tea maker and get the job done :P)

For folks like us, who don’t have their milk frother on hand, the below recipe DOES NOT require a frother… although it might require a bit of arm exercise…

Earl Grey Tea Latte (serves 1)

• 120 ml strong brew of earl grey tea
• 100 ml of milk
• 2 tsp (or to taste) of sugar

1. Brew the earl grey tea. (With our Leaf, it’ll take approximately 6min for a rich dark brew)
2. If you have a frother, froth and heat the milk as instructed per device. If you happen to not have a frother on hand, pour the milk into a steralized microwavable glass jar. Close the jar and give the milk a good shake for 30-45 seconds, or until your milk appears double in volume. Remove the lid, and microwave for 30 seconds.
3. Pour the tea into a cup and stir in the sugar
4. With a large spoon, gently cover the jar opening, and pour the milk liquid into the tea cup
5. Using the spoon, top the cup with the remaining foam
6. And voila, home-made tea latte! Enjoy!

 

Like always, this recipe is made for one, but it can easily be doubled, tripled, quadrupled! and so on. With Leaf, our tea maker, 5 cups of earl grey tea latte can be made in a single brew.