I’ve tried baking with tea before, but I couldn’t get the tea flavor to come through strongly enough. I’ve tried:

• Grinding tea and putting it directly in the batter. This doesn’t release the tea flavor and people don’t like finding leaf bits in their cupcakes.
• Steeping the tea in milk and using the tea-infused milk. I imagine that this could work, but not all recipes contain milk – and if they do, it’s not always enough to strongly affect the cupcake flavor.
• Steeping tea bags in butter. The butter boiled, the flavor never changed, and the tea bags disintegrated. People like pieces of tea bag in their cupcake far less than they like leaves.

So what’s the best way to bake with tea?

I learned the secret to tea-infused baked goods from a now-defunct blog post by Robert Wemischner (author of Cooking with Tea [paid link] and The Dessert Architect [paid link]) on T Ching (I love the name!). The trick is…

What Happens When You Over-mix Cake Batter?

Mixing batter until “just combined” means that you should stop mixing as soon as you can’t see the ingredient that you just added. For example, if you are adding flour to butter and sugar, you should immediately stop mixing once you no longer see any white powder.

You may have read that when you overmix cake batter, the gluten in the flour can form elastic gluten strands – resulting in a more dense, chewy texture. This can be beneficial in cookies, but it’s not so great in cakes and it’s an archenemy of flaky pie crusts. Until I saw a great visual of an over-mixed cake, I’d never thought to purposely make an over-mixed cupcake to see (and taste) what happens.

Cupcake Project Substitution Lab

Test 2: Using Applesauce as a Butter or Oil Substitute

Introduction / Purpose

Many of you have asked me about using applesauce as a butter or oil substitute to cut back on fat. With holiday baking season upon us, it would be great to know if that really works. So, I decided to take it to the Cupcake Project Substitution Lab (a.k.a. my kitchen) and to run some tests. How would the substitution affect the consistency of the dessert? Is applesauce a viable alternative to butter and oil? My hypothesis was that the substitution would be successful, but the texture would be compromised and the applesauce might lend an apple taste to the desserts.

Materials

For my experiments, I used organic, unsweetened applesauce. (View on Amazon) [paid link]

Test 1: Using Mayonnaise as an Egg Substitute

Introduction / Purpose

Mayonnaise is mostly egg yolk and oil; so, despite the initial “yuck” factor, mayo is sometimes suggested as a substitution for eggs in baking. The most famous example of baking with mayonnaise is the chocolate mayo cake – proclaimed to be extra-moist. I wanted to know how mayonnaise would work as a substitution for eggs in desserts other than chocolate cake. Would I be able to taste the mayo? How would it affect the consistency of the dessert? Is mayonnaise a viable alternative to eggs? I decided to run some tests in my substitution lab (a.k.a. my kitchen). My hypothesis was that the substitution would be successful, but taste would be compromised.

Materials

To perform my tests, I used full-fat organic mayonnaise. (View on Amazon) [paid link]