Hi there, and happy spring! To celebrate the dawn of a new season, today I’m going to share with you a delicious spring youthberry tea cake with citrus buttercream.
First, I enhanced my favorite white cake base with Teavana’s youthberry tea. It’s a lovely white brew with citrus notes featuring orange blossom, hibiscus, and rose. You could use substitute any tea that you prefer!
Then, we’ll add a layer of beautifully contrasting, tart raspberry jam and ultra-smooth orange faux swiss meringue buttercream.
Finally, some fun tea bag bombs and edible dried flowers finish off the details. Though you don’t have to decorate this cake as I did, if you want to, I’ll share with you how to replicate the bountiful floral explosion featured on my cake.
I wanted to use the tea bombs to depict winter and show the flowers emerging from the “ice” as a metaphorical representation of the emergence of spring from chilly winter. Let me know in the comments what you think of this cake design!
So, without further ado, let’s get started! First, peruse the materials list. Then, check out the printable recipe and tips below. Most importantly, enjoy the process and have fun!
Spring Youthberry Tea Cake – Materials List
Before you begin baking, make sure you have all of the necessary kitchen tools. I’ve included links (affiliate) for easy reference and shopping!
- 3, 6-inch cake pans
- Mixing bowls of varying sizes
- Small saucepan with lid
- Stand mixer with paddle and whisk (you can use a handheld, but it’s not recommended)
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Spatula
- Cake leveler/wire, turntable, cake scraper, offset spatula, piping bags – all can be purchased in a kit like this
- Wire cooling rack
- Food coloring gels
- Edible dried or fresh flowers (these are the ones I used)
- Teabag bombs; you can find the instructions here
- Plastic wrap
Spring Youthberry Tea Cake – Method
Follow these directions to create a delicious spring youthberry tea cake! For some more detailed cake decorating references, check out my links below this recipe card.
Spring Youthberry Tea Cake with Raspberry Filling and Orange Faux Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Ingredients
Youthberry Milk
- 1¼ cup milk
- 4 bag Teavana youthberry tea
Youthberry Cake
- 2 sticks butter, room temp
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 egg whites, room temp
- 1 whole egg, room temp
- 3¼ cup flour
- 2½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 bag Youthberry tea, finely ground/chopped
- ½ tsp orange extract
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup Youthberry milk, recipe above
- ½ cup vegetable oil
Raspberry Filling
- 2 pint raspberries
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2-4 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
Orange Faux Swiss Meringue
- 9 tbsp pasteurized egg whites from a carton (room temp)
- 4½ cup powdered sugar
- ¾ tsp salt
- 2¼ cups butter, room temp (4½ sticks)
- 1½ tsp orange extract (or to taste)
- ½ tsp vanilla extract (or to taste)
Instructions
Youthberry Milk
- Put your milk in a saucepan and bring it to a simmer. Turn off the heat, place in the tea bags, and cover with a lid. Remove from the hot burner and let infuse for 10-15 minutes. After the time is up, remove the lid to let the milk cool until you're ready to use it.
Youthberry Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and butter/flour your cake pans. Set aside.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, finely ground tea, and set aside.
- In another bowl or your pan, combine the milk, oil, and extracts. It will appear separated because of the different densities, but that's okay for now.
- Beat the butter and sugar together for 3-4 minutes, or until it is light and fluffy. Then, add the room temperature egg whites and whole egg, one at a time, beating in between each addition.
- Then, add the wet ingredients and dry ingredients to the beaten mixture, and mix with a spatula, until just combined.
- Pour evenly into the three pans, and bake for 40-45 minutes, checking with a toothpick for doneness.
- Let the cakes cool for five minutes in their pans on a wire rack. Then, turn the cakes out of their pans onto the wired rack to finish cooling. Let the layers fully cool before moving on to decorating.
Raspberry Filling
- In a saucepan, toss together the raspberries, lemon juice, cornstarch, and 2 tbsp of sugar. Mash the raspberries just slightly with your spoon or spatula.
- Let the mixture come to a simmer for a few minutes to thicken. Taste test, and add more sugar if needed. Remember, you don't want it too sweet – the tartness will help balance some sweetness of the cake. Once it coats the back of your spoon or spatula, remove it from the heat and let cool until ready to assemble your cake.
Orange Faux Swiss Meringue
- In your mixer bowl, combine the egg whites, sugar, and salt on low until it is combined. This is a "faux" SWMB because we don't first heat the egg whites. If you wish to create an authentic Swiss Meringue Buttercream, you can type that into the search bar on my blog for my recipe!
- Once combined, turn the speed up and beat with the whisk attachment for 4-5 minutes, or until the sugar dissolves.
- Switch to the paddle attachment, and turn the mixer to low. Add the room temperature buttercream, 1-2 tbsp at a time. Then, add the extracts and beat for a few minutes more until light and fluffy.
- Cover with plastic wrap at room temperature until it's ready to use.
Decorating/Assembling The Cake
- Use your cake leveler to remove the uneven tops from the cake layers.
- Then, place one cake down on your turntable. Apply a thin layer of buttercream with your offset spatula. Then, apply a dam of buttercream around the edge with your piping bag. Fill the inside with raspberry jam. Then, top with another layer of cake, and repeat.
- Once the layers are stacked, apply a thin layer of buttercream on top and around the edges of your cake. Use the cake scraper to smooth out the frosting, and your offset spatula to smooth out the top. Refrigerate this crumb coat for 10-15 minutes to let it harden.
- Then, color some of your buttercream pink, yellow, and orange. Be sure to reserve some white for later. Apply these different colors of buttercream randomly around the cake with your offset spatula in swiping motions. Then, use your cake scraper to smooth out the sides, blurring the different colors together.
- Finally, using your offset spatula, carefully apply some white buttercream to only the top, top edge, and bottom edge of the cake. Use your cake scraper very gently to smooth out this new section of frosting, being careful not to remove too much frosting in order to preserve the rough edge of the effect.
- Then, top the cake with your teabag bombs (recipe can be found on my site) and place one opened teabag bomb near the front. Apply some edible flowers in a manner in which they appear to cascade out of the bomb and onto the front of the cake.
- Store the cake at room temperature for two days. Then, refrigerate or freeze any leftovers.
Happy Spring!
I hope you enjoy this cake as much as I do, and I hope your spring is off to a good start so far. Remember to check out my teabag bombs recipe here, or click this link to peruse more of my cake recipes. For a more in-depth cake decorating tutorial, as well as a video depicting the steps described above, check out my Nutty Orange Chocolate Cake. You can also leave me a comment with any questions! I respond quickly, and am happy to help!
Feel free to find me on Instagram so we can keep in touch, and be sure to tag me in any photos you post of your spring cakes! I love to see your works of culinary art.
And, enter your email below to receive notification of my next blog post like this one. You don’t want to miss it!
Take care guys! Until next time…
XOXO
P.S.
See my privacy policy for the full Amazon Affiliate disclosure. Profits earned from affiliate commissions help to keep this site running, so that I can continue to bring great content to awesome readers, like you! If you would like, you can still support by clicking through this link and making any other purchases you need. 🙂
P.P.S
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