Arnold Palmer Cake: Part One

Although the grand reveal of the test run will be unveiled on Sunday afternoon, I'm making the components and assembling for my birthday party with the family two weeks from today. Maybe I won't break all the cake layers again.

Bitter Tea Soak and Tea Jelly

• 475 g (2 1/4 C) water
• 8 Lipton black tea bags
• 350 g (1 3/4 C) sugar
• 50 g (1/4 C) instant Lipton unsweetened tea powder [This took me a little bit of hunting and I eventually managed to find this Porter Square Shaw's. They only had the decaffeinated unsweetened instant tea, but I can live with that. However, I think the measurement by weight is grossly inaccurate. Perhaps later I'll go into why typically it's better to bake by weight rather than volume.]
• 10 g (1/2 t) pectin NH (easily obtained online) [Perhaps if you're willing to bake beyond a hobby level, but I used grocery store dry pectin. There's a possibility I will choose to actually buy pectin NH some day since it is sort of available on Amazon unlike something else I will mention in this entry.]
• 20 g (1 1/2 T) lemon juice

Doubled the amount of ingredients this time for the tea soak since:
a) I wanted to actually have enough to make the tea jelly this time
b) Hey I might as well have some left over to not just skip the soak since there isn't any!

In transferring this from container to container I spilled enough to warrant throwing four kitchen rags into the laundry pile I'm doing tomorrow... But progress!


Tea jelly mise en place

Almond Tea Crunch (Couldn't take a proper photo of any of this)

• 50 g (1/4 C) instant Lipton lemon iced tea powder [Whoa just now realizing that this calls for a slightly different thing than the Tea Jelly ingredient. My bad; this probably wasn't a fatal mistake.]
• 15 g (2 T) slivered almonds
• 55 g (1/4 C) almond butter
• 40 g (1/2 C) feuilletine [The item that IS NOT available on Amazon. I was considering ordering this from a gourmet shop based in NYC along with a moderate amount of pectin NH but I can't exactly justify paying 50% extra because FedEx ground is my cheapest shipping option. A cursory Google search turned up an idea on a forum that Chinese Love Letter cookies (Available where else but a Chinese market and also more commonly known as egg roll cookies) is an acceptable substitute for something Tosi considers "impossible to replicate." ]
• 30 g (3 T) confectioner's sugar
• 2 g (1/2 t) kosher salt

Part 2 and 3 to come in the subsequent days. Additionally, an entry on Short Ribs and Cinnamon (HCE) tomorrow.