Cumin Honey-Glazed Carrots

This is the recipe that will have you loving cooked carrots until the end of your days. It smells wonderful, tastes even better, and is really simple to make. It makes a great side dish for a roast chicken or a ham or pork roast. Or, just make it as a snack and eat it by itself :)

Ingredients

• one bunch of small/medium sized carrots
• 2 tablespoons of butter
  
• 3 tablespoons Honey
• 2 tablespoons chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 teaspoon fresh cumin seed
• salt and pepper

Directions

1. Slice the carrots diagonally to make kind of oval-shaped slices.
2. With a mortar and pestle, grind the cumin seed.
3. In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Once the butter is hot, sautee the carrot slices for about 3-5 min.
4. Add the ground cumin seed and the chicken or vegetable stock and cook for another 5 min.
   
5. Add the honey and cook until the honey and stock are reduced to a thick sauce and the carrots are a bit tender, but still firm.
6. Salt and pepper to taste

Earl Grey Cupcakes with Mascarpone Whipped Cream Frosting

This recipe comes from here, and it turned out brilliantly. The only thing we would do differently next time, is to use a little more tea and make sure it steeps a long time, as the tea flavor in the cupcakes was a bit more subtle than we wished. The frosting is awesome, and the cupcakes themselves turned out great. One of the best cupcakes I've had.

Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) of butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 tbsp tea

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (177 C). Prep a cupcake pan with liners.
2. In a small saucepan, warm the milk until hot and steaming, making sure to stir so you don't scald the milk.
3. Put tea in the milk, remove from heat and let steep. You can use an infuser, or put the tea in directly and then strain it out later. You want the milk to have a strong tea flavor, so err on the side of more tea, warmer milk, and longer steeping.
4. In a mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt).
5. With a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until combined. Then add eggs, one at a time, and finally, the vanilla.
6. Alternate adding some of the dry ingredients, mixing it into the butter/sugar mixture, and then adding some of the tea-infused milk, and mixing it into the butter/sugar mixture, until everything is well-combined.
7. Divide the batter into the liners, and bake for 14-16 minutes. Check with a toothpick, and when it comes out dry or very slightly moist, remove from oven.
8. Cool on a wire rack.

Frosting

Ingredients

• 8 oz mascarpone cheese
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, combine cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla. Stir until everything is well-combined.
2. Whip the cream to stiff peaks using a mixer or copper bowl and whisk.
3. Fold the whipped cream into the cheese mixture gently until it is all combined. The texture should end up light and fluffy.

We topped the cupcakes with a little tiny sprinkling of tea leaves, just for effect.