Growing up in a Taiwanese/Chinese-American household, almost all of our plateware was white and blue porcelain. To this day, I still don’t fully get why it was that color, but the pattern has really grown on me over the years. To the point where I really wanted to make a cake as an homage to that color scheme. The white with blue florals just sounded really cute and fun to play around with, and it gave me some leeway to practice using floral stencils to transpose blue buttercream floral patterns onto a cake. This I definitely need more practice or test rounds with the stencils, I am happy enough with the results to share them here! For the flavors of the cake, I went primarily with Assam tea, which is this rich, malty tea similar to Darjeeling(which is a black tea commonly used in royal milk tea, one of my personal favorite beverages!). Assam pairs gorgeously more robust flavors, but in this case, I opted to use it on its own for the most part, using subtle notes of coconut and Hong Kong almond powder to accentuate the more floral notes in the tea itself. I wanted to use the Assam tea for a stronger milk tea-like flavor profile, just to really crank up the nostalgia in this recipe from both an aesthetic and flavor standpoint. Drinking (milk) tea while eating either fruit or cake off of blue and white porcelain sums up a good portion of my childhood, so it just made sense to recreate that in cake form.

For this recipe, we have an Assam tea sponge cake, an Assam milk tea soak, an Assam milk tea mousse, and two colors of coconut Swiss meringue buttercream. I used Hong Kong almond powder in the soak and mousse, as a way to add this nutty, warming flavor profile to the cake, but you can substitute the powder out with 1/2 tsp of almond extract if you can’t get the powder(I purchased my powder from a Chinese supermarket). The powder is made from ground Chinese almond pits, giving it that bitter and floral almond flavor that you would usually only find in almond extract or amoretto. I personally love it because it adds a complexity to desserts and plays off of sugar nicely. In this case, it gives this warming feeling and taste to my Assam tea components. The buttercream, I used a Swiss meringue buttercream, which has a lot of stability and firmness to it, make it a more ideal candidate for a cake where shaping buttercream comes into place. I used stencils to impose on the initial blue patterns onto the cake, then I did this fun technique where I cover the entire patterned cake in white buttercream, then gently scraped it off using a warmed bench scarper to expose the blue patterns in a smoother texture. I will admit that this cake took about 3 hours of manual labor to assemble, most of which was the buttercream, but it was a really therapeutic experience to bring it all together, and a comforting one to eat it!

Makes 1 5-inch cake:
For the Assam sponge cake:
2 eggs, separated
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp canola oil
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4oz Assam tea leaves, finely ground
1/2 tsp baking powder

In a bowl, whip egg whites with sugar to stiff peaks. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with oil and salt. Sift the flour, tea leaf powder, and baking powder into the egg whites. Then pour in the egg yolks to that and fold everything together until combined into a batter. Pour the batter onto a parchment-lined quarter sheet tray and spread into a thin, even layer. Bake at 350 degrees F for 18 minutes. Cut out four 5-inch disks of the cake, using scraps as necessary to supplement the disks.

For the Assam tea soak:
3 Assam tea bags
1/2 cup water
8oz coconut milk
a pinch of salt
1oz Hong Kong almond powder

Bring tea bags and water to a simmer for 10 minutes. Strain out the tea bags and pour in the whole milk, salt, and almond powder. Stir until everything is dissolved together and cool it down. Reserve 4oz of the soak for your cake layers, pouring 1oz of the soak onto each cake disk, and reduce the rest of the soak down by half for the mousse.

For the Assam tea mousse:
Reduced Assam tea soak
2 tsp gelatin powder + 2 tbsp cold water
2oz white chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream, whipped stiff

In a pot, melt down the tea soak with gelatin and white chocolate. Pour through a sieve to remove lumps and allow the mousse base to cool down to lukewarm before folding in the heavy cream to form your mousse.

For initial assembly:
Line a 5-inch ring mold with acetate. Place down the scrape layer of cake first, then add in the soak. Pour in 1/3 of the mousse as well. Repeat these steps against until you’re down to the layer round of cake. Place that down, and add in the last of your soak. Freeze the cake for at least 4 hours before attempting to unmold the cake. Keep the cake in the freezer for assembly.

For the coconut-Swiss meringue buttercream:
2 egg whites
1/4 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
2oz coconut milk
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 dot blue gel food coloring

In a heatproof bowl, whisk the egg whites, sugar, and salt over a double boiler until the egg whites are frothy and the sugar is dissolved. Transfer to a stand mixer with a whisk attachment and begin whipping the whites until they form stiff peaks. Then add in the coconut milk, butter, and vanilla, stirring until everything is fully combined. You will not add in the food coloring until the second to last step in assembling the cake.

For buttercream assembly:
Start by applying a crumb coat onto the cake using the un-dyed buttercream. Return the cake to the freezer for 30 minutes, then spread on another smoother layer of the un-dyed buttercream. Take about 1/4 of the remaining un-dyed buttercream and stir in the dot of gel food coloring. Using floral-patterned stencils, spread the blue buttercream around the cake. Freeze the cake for another 30 minutes before spreading on the un-dyed buttercream. Freeze the cake for another 30 minutes, then using a warmed bench scraper, gently shave off the un-dyed buttercream to expose the blue floral patterns – reserve the scraped buttercream and transfer that to a piping bag with a round piping tip. Any spare blue buttercream, transfer to a piping bag with a floral piping tip. Pipe a border of the buttercream on top of the cake, and optionally, pipe dots of the buttercream around the sides of the cake as well. Allow the cake to freeze for at least 1 more hour before transferring to a serving surface.