Flipping through a free American Lifestyle magazine sent monthly from our real estate agent, I stopped on this interesting recipe for chamomile-tangerine cake and thought to myself, “Perfect Spring/Easter cake- sounds refreshing!” I have had chamomile tea before of course, and I do like the taste of it; however, if you are not one of those people- that’s okay because I couldn’t taste the chamomile at all.
The chamomile part of the recipe is just infusing the milk used for the cake batter with chamomile tea bags for about 5 minutes. That’s it. The majority of the flavor will be the orange/tangerine marmalade and the tangerine juice in the frosting- which by the way is delicious and the only part of the recipe I plan on keeping.
Not to say the cake tasted bad, but it wasn’t fluffy enough in terms of the texture. And if I am going to eat cake, I like the cake fluffy. Could this have been a “baker’s error?” Very possible. Guess we’ll never know for sure because I don’t plan on making this again. And if you’re wondering…no one took a nap.
The longest part of the recipe was letting the cakes cool and then the assembly part of it (adding the frosting and trying to make it look pretty). I didn’t have any chamomile flowers or daisies, so I just used the tangerine slices for the decor. It came out pretty good, not perfect by any means, but not embarrassing either.
Final Recipe Thoughts
Meh.
The frosting, however, was great. I think in the future I will use that frosting with some cupcakes or even for sugar cookies. If you’re going to try this, I say ditch the chamomile, use some fluffy cake batter recipe (or a good ole pre-made cake mix), and make sure you have some frosting reserve… (for eating separately with a big spoon when no one is looking).
Until next time.
P. Simone
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