Black tea wafers with mascarpone filling

After a really bad day at work – they happen more and more often – I went home and I was so nervous… all that I wanted  was cooking, and possibly using chocolate, remedy for all problems, serotonin maker, a good thing! So I decided to make a moment of pleasure and relax out of another bad moment, using a specific ingredient that, in itself, is a way to take care of themselves: the tea.

So let me introduce you two fantastic girls: one is Susina who has created the contest Tea Recipes , with whom I share many passions, including those for Scotland and Ireland, Robbie Williams and Robert Downey Jr, the other is Viz : we have so many things in common and we love chatting and laughing together. She not only sent me a wonderful gift package (3 types of tea and a book of recipes based on tea) but she pushed me as well to take part to this competitions, catching the time that was sliding through my hands!

::::: WAFFLES WITH BLACK TEA AND MASCARPONE CREAM :::::

Wafers ingredients:

• clarified butter, 50gr
• flour, 50 gr
• caster sugar, 75 gr
• organic lemon, 1/2
• black tea leaves withforest fruits and cornflower, 1 teaspoon
• egg whites, 2
• fine vanilla sea salt, 1 pinch

Mascarpone cream ingredients:

• fresh mascarpone cheese, 250gr
• extra dark chocolate, 50 gr
• icing sugar, 1 large tablespoon
• orange powder, 1 large tablespoon

To serve:

• extra dark chocolate, 100 gr
• orange powder, 1 tablespoon
• chopped hazelnuts, 1 tablespoon

As regards wafers recipe, it belongs to Delicious : Days, the book: check it, it is as great as the site!

Melt clarified butter and let it cool completely. Sift flour and add caster sugar, grated lemon zest and tea leaves: do crush them finely in a pestle. Add melt clarified butter and stir well to get a soft dough. Whip egg whites until foamy – they should not be too firm – and pour them into the batter gently.

This is the time to make the wafers. Preheat oven to 200°C. To help you fulfilling your task, drew round shapes of 10cm diameter on your parchment paper and coated the shapes with the batter using a small brush. Be sure to make a thin wafer, with all the same thickness, or in the oven a some will burn and some won’t bake well. You will need to make more than one batch: I have made 3  batches for a total of about 16 wafers (I said about because a few wafers broke down in pieces so, inevitably, I had to sacrifice them and eat the pieces).

Bake for about 6 – 8 minutes until golden. Remove the baking tin from the oven and take out wafers from the paper with a spatula or a knife. Then with your hands, scornful of the danger, until they are warm wrap them around the handle of a wooden spoon or any cylinder shape you can find (I used the glass test tubes containing my superior qualiy salt) and leave to cool. They remain crisp – if empty – for a few days.

Meanwhile, make the filling, mixing mascarpone cheese with icing sugar, powdered orange and coarsely grated dark chocolate. Melt the chocolate in bain marie. Put the cream in a sac-a-poche or decorating syringe and fill the wafer cylinders. Dip one end of wafers into melted chocolate, then sprinkle with orange powder or granulated hazelnuts and let cool on a sheet of baking paper. With this amount of ingredients I stuffed more or less 8 wafers.

Serve in a short time, otherwise the wafers will loose their crunchy side because of the mascarpone cheese filling.

To cut a long story short: forest fruit black tea – intense and fruity – combined with the freshness of orange powder of the cream mixture proved to be a delicious marriage! It won’t be an innovative, revolutionary or memorable recipe, but it was the right remedy for a bad day, and for that I think it was absolutely perfect!

Related posts:

Summer 2009 Cupcake Crawl Christmas Tea Tiramisu. Six steps to a memorable dessert. Laura’s Sacher Torte Moelleux au chocolat