I don’t know where I found this recipe, it’s been saved in my “Notes” on my phone for quite awhile. It’s one of those “cheater” recipes that uses a cake mix as the base. But the Earl Grey Buttercream is totally homemade and balances it all out, flavors and effort!
The cookie and the frosting taken individually, I wasn’t impressed with, kind of worried actually, but together they work. Cooking and baking adventures aren’t always perfect, so I thought it was realistic to share this one, too. I think the buttercream came out lovely, I might try it with macaroons, it could be really good there.
London Fog Cookies
Cookies
2 boxes of devil’s food cake mix
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2/3 cups of vegetable oil
Confection’s Sugar for rolling
Directions:
Mix the cake mix, eggs, vanilla, and oil into a mixing bowl and mix very well. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for one hour. While the dough is chilling now would be a good time to start the butter for the Earl Grey buttercream as shown below! Preheat the oven to 375. Roll cookies into small balls about the circumference of a nickel. If you weigh them, they should be about 15 grams. Roll them into confectioner’s sugar. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and tap the tops of the cookies to flatten slightly. Let cool on the pan for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cooled, pipe a dollop of Earl Grey buttercream on the bottom of one cookie and top with a second to make sandwiches.
Earl Grey Buttercream
2 egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar
2 and 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (separated!)
5 bags of Earl Grey tea
Directions:
Gently melt 2 sticks of butter in a saucepan and bring to a slight boil. Steep the tea bags into the butter and let them sit for 15 minutes in the melted butter. Squeeze the tea bags to extract any butter absorbed into the tea bags. You should notice some dark brown liquid coming out of the tea bags. This is the butter infused into the tea. Make sure to get as much of it out of the bags as possible. Discard the used tea bags. Stir the melted butter and pour into a bowl and put into the fridge for 30 minutes. This will firm up the butter but keep it soft/spreadable like room temp butter. When the cookies are cooling, put the egg whites, sugar, and tartar into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix very well. Place over a double boiler. Gently cook the mixture until it comes to 160 degrees, whisking often. Immediately place the bowl onto the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Beat well for about 8 minutes until heavy peaks form. This takes 5 to 8 minutes. Change the whisk attachment to the paddle attachment. At this point, the melted butter that was in the fridge should NOT be melted but spreadable like room temperature butter. Give it a good mix. If it’s still melted and not the consistency of spreadable butter, put it back into the fridge or freezer to firm up some more. The other half a stick of butter should be room temperature. Slowly add a tablespoon or two of the butter (doesn’t matter if it’s the infused butter or the regular butter) to the frosting beating well after each addition. After all the butter is added, beat the hell out of it until it’s the consistency of frosting. Should only take a few minutes.
Tip to Tail Gourmet 