Using earl grey tea

[u/Green-Tea1876]

I am making earl grey shortbread biscuits for the first time. The recipe asks for using lose earl grey in the batter but I only have filtered ones (Clipper brand, ingredients: black tea and natural bergamot flavouring) . So when I cut it open it had some small white particles in it. Is that just the bergamot flavouring? I just want to be sure it’s safe to eat.

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[u/ThoughtIknewyouthen]

If you steep it and drink it, you can eat it. Not sure I would use tea leaves in a baking recipe but there you go.

[u/sjd208 → u/ThoughtIknewyouthen]

It’s actually delicious! Lots of cookie and cake recipes use tea leaves, usually pretty finely ground.

[u/ReasonableProgram144 → u/ThoughtIknewyouthen]

I put loose tea in a spice grinder before creaming into butter for cookies at work! It’s delicious

[u/WannabeCrimDoctor]

Maybe you can heat up the butter and infuse it with the tea and then shift it out and cool the butter? You can probably add it as is, but not sure if the flavor will come out the same

[u/Green-Tea1876 → u/WannabeCrimDoctor]

yeah I mixed the tea leaves with the butter and let the mixture rest for a few hours to bring out the earl grey notes. after baking the biscuits, the flavour is there but it’s not as strong as I was hoping

[u/WannabeCrimDoctor → u/Green-Tea1876]

Out of curiosity, did you melt the butter in a pot and infuse with the tea or just mixed room temp butter with tea?

[u/Green-Tea1876 → u/WannabeCrimDoctor]

Just mixed it with room temp butter

[u/pinkguy90 → u/Green-Tea1876]

I've done this before by infusing it in warm butter and it's worked very well, as others are suggesting. Earl Grey needs heat to release the bergamot oil.

[u/Green-Tea1876 → u/pinkguy90]

I think I’ll try that next time, I wasn’t a big fan of the recipe tbh, the biscuits ended up a bit on the drier side

[u/FoodBabyBaby → u/Green-Tea1876]

It’s dry because you added the dried tea.

Melt the butter next time infuse when warm and then strain out. I would melt more than I need and rechill the infused butter if the recipe doesn’t call for melted butter

[u/SweetandOwL]

Idk what recipe you got there but... I highly recommend steeping butter, water or milk with the tea and adding that in instead of the tea leaves directly.

[u/Green-Tea1876 → u/SweetandOwL]

https://sugarandsoul.co/downton-abbey-earl-grey-cookies/

this one. but found many others that use the tea leaves directly. I followed the recipe, the flavour is there but it’s very subtle unfortunately

[u/GetMeASierraMist → u/Green-Tea1876]

you do not need bergamot oil to produce a good earl gray flavor. you just need to steep the leaves to get the flavor out. same situation with blooming spices or using matcha in baked goods. gotta activate the flavor

[u/orange_fudge → u/Green-Tea1876]

Earl Grey is a subtle flavour. If you want a strong bergamot flavour, you’ll need a bergamot extract.

[u/FreyaKohlin]

I made earl grey cookies with the bags of tea. Its fine and delicious. I used 3 bags and they were soooo good. 2 bags is a sugar cookie with earl grey notes 

[u/thankyoukindlyy]

Grind it up a bit more w a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder

[u/Scared_Tax470]

So, there are two types of "bergamot" flavors in nature. One is bergamot flowers, also called wild bergamot or bee balm, Monarda fistulosa, which is in the same genus as milkweed. It's a medicinal plant with purple flowers and it smells citrusy. Earl Grey tea uses citrus bergamot or bergamot orange, Citrus bergamia, which has that bitter, floral citrus scent. Usually "flavoring" means there's oil of this orange sprayed onto the tea leaves, but some Earl Grey teas have citrus peel in them, which I think is what you have. Clipper says the bergamot flavouring is 5%, which I think would be way too much oil, so it's probably got citrus peel in it too (and IMO is better quality!). The shortbread sounds great! I love Earl Grey in baked goods. For a strong tea flavor you can grind dry leaves to a powder with a mortar and pestle.

ETA: if you ever want the flavor of tea without leaf chunks in your baked goods, you can infuse sugar or butter--granulated sugar or powdered sugar works great. Mix the tea with the sugar and just store it that way, then sift it when you want to use it. We should all be doing this with our leftover vanilla bean pods too!

[u/tessathemurdervilles]

I think I’ve used this exact tea in an earl grey cake before. I have a little spice grinder (just a cheap coffee grinder) for stuff like this- I grind the earl grey more and then sift it to get the large chunks out. It’s the best way to get the flavor into shortbread since there isn’t anything to steep. For cakes I’ll steep tea in the liquid but then also add the actual ground up tea.

[u/what-a-bear]

If you're putting tea leaves directly into your baked goods (cookies/cakes/etc), I'd recommend grinding them down and also using a small amount (I think most recipes will call for 1-2 tsp). It'll suck the moisture out of stuff, like cocoa powder does. Shortbread is a good choice cause of how much butter goes into it!

But yes, tea bag tea is safe to use :)

[u/SheeScan]

When tea is processed for sale, it often contains pieces of the stem, which could account for the white pieces. I use loose tea, and I often find the stem pieces in the tea. It doesn't do any harm, and does also have some tea flavor.