Lady Grey is similar to Earl Grey but it has a lighter, more citrusy flavour. It lends itself well to this sandwich cake, the orange and bergamot flavours in the tea are enhanced by orange zest in the cake and juice in the buttercream icing.
It was a really grey day when I took the photograph for this post, but a slice of this cake soon brightened the afternoon up!
The easiest way to make this cake is in a food processor, but I have also given an alternative method at the end if you prefer to use a hand-held whisk.
I just decorated my cake with some paper flowers because I am sooo bad at cake decorating. You are probably more artistically gifted than I am, so feel free to use anything else you like.
Lady Grey Mother’s Day Cake
4 Lady Grey teabags
4tbsp (60ml) boiling water
1 large orange
225g self-raising flour
225g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
1tsp baking powder
225g unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs
For the icing:
500g icing sugar
110g unsalted butter, softened
Juice of half an orange
Put the teabags in a small cup or bowl and pour over the boiling water. Cover the cup/bowl with cling film and leave to steep for 45 minutes. Remove the teabags, and leave to cool to room temperature.
Heat your oven to 160C(fan)/180C/Gas4 , butter two 20″ sandwich tins and line the bases with baking parchment.
Scrub the orange well under hot water to remove any wax on the skin, and then finely grate the zest. Put the orange aside as you will use the juice in the icing.
Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a food processor and blitz briefly to combine.
Next add the butter and eggs to the food processor and blitz until thoroughly mixed – don’t over mix once it is combined. Add the orange zest and cold tea to the bowl and blitz briefly to mix in.
Split the batter evenly between the two tins and level the mixture. Put in the middle of the oven (on the same shelf if possible) and cook for around 25 minutes. Depending on the size of your oven, you may want to swap the tins around after about 20 minutes to make sure that they cook evenly.
The cakes are cooked when the middle of cake springs back when it is pressed lightly, or a skewer put in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Put the cakes in their tins on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Then turn out the cakes and remove the paper from the bases, and allow to cool thoroughly.
When you are ready to ice the cakes, put the butter, half of the icing sugar and juice of half the orange into a large bowl. Mix together with electric beaters, this will take a couple of minutes. Gradually beat in the remainder of the icing sugar until you have a creamy icing. If you feel the icing needs to be a little looser, add a few drops more of the orange juice until it reaches the right consistency.
Sandwich the two cakes together with some of the icing, and then spread the remainder on top of the cake.
Note: If you want to make the cake with a hand-held whisk rather than a food processor, here is the method:
Sieve together the flour, salt and baking powder. Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between each addition. Stir in a spoonful of flour after each egg to avoid the mixture splitting, then add the zest and cold tea. Finally, fold in the remainder of the flour with a spoon.
The remainder of the recipe is as above.