Isn’t it wonderful when several of your favorite things come together? Everyone who visits this blog knows I love to garden and that baking is what I do professionally. But I am betting that not many of you know that I have a thing for hibiscus plants, specifically, Hibiscus sabdariffa. More commonly known as Roselle, this is the variety of hibiscus used to make tea. Just look at that bloom; how could you not love it?
While the flower is pretty, and edible, it is a day flower which means it opens for a day and then dies. As soon as the bloom withers, the plant begins producing seeds in the calyx. To make tea, you must gather them before the pod swells with immature seeds. It takes quite a few to make a pot of tea! Because of this, I generally plant 3 or 4 of them around the garden and yard. They can get quite large if the conditions are right; lots of direct sun, plenty of moisture but not soggy.
If you are looking at this plant and are thinking that it looks like okra, you are right! Hibiscus is also related to cotton and if you spend time in garden centers, you will find that there are lots of perennial and annual varieties of hibiscus. Unfortunately, this variety will not survive a freeze which means you must overwinter it indoors or start over each spring which is what I do. The seeds need heat and will not germinate until the soil is warm. Start them indoors or wait until about May to plant seeds outdoors.
They will begin blooming in late summer and that is when you will have calyxes to collect. Spread them out and dry them completely, I do it in the oven with just the light on. Then when dry, you can store them in a glass jar.
So what does this plant have to do with baking? This week’s recipe from Baking Chez Moi calls for hibiscus tea! This recipe mixed up quickly and easily and when it was all said and done, I sent these, along with the Valentine’s Share-A-Heart cookies to my girls for Valentine’s Day. They loved them!
Devon called hers a little pink pizza and looking at that shot, I can see why. However, they tasted like no pizza I have ever eaten! Crispy and flaky and full of vanilla(I was out of rose water) and with just a hint of tangy, floral notes from the hibiscus tea.
The recipe does not call for much tea so I only used a few calyxes-whizzed them in the spice grinder. My thought is that next time, and there will be a next time, I will use double the amount. After all, summer is coming and I will have more plants in the garden!
Join us sometime! We love the company. Pick up a copy of Baking Chez Moi and bake along with us. To see how the rest of the bakers did, visit the website.
A while back, I picked up a little tin of matcha tea so that I could try baking with it. Needless to say, it has been living on the spice rack in the pantry and would probably still be there, unopened, if the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers had not chosen to make matcha financiers this week!
Since we are trying to lose a little weight here, I only made a third of the recipe which gave me 10 little cakes. My new pan, one I found on my last trip to Pennsylvania, is actually for popovers and for some reason, it only has 7 cups in it which meant I had to use 2 pans. The ones I baked in the muffin pan, a black-nonstick pan, are on the right side of the photo. The look very different from the ones baked in my aluminum popover pan.
Not only did they look different, they also came out shorter and much darker. Beleive it or not, I used a portion scoop and each one is the same amount of batter-the pans were just so different that it really shows in the baked cakes above.
Matcha tea is not easy to find and I picked mine up in a 
My new, old pan. It is a fairly heavy gauge, aluminum popover pan and the cups are nice and deep. Best part, I think I spent $3.00 for it!
A side view of the cups-nice and deep
The photo in the book has very bright green cakes but the recipe tells you that the batter will be a pea green. Mine are definitely pea green which makes me wonder about the photo in the book. The day these were baked, the flavor was a little grassy and I did not care for them but as they aged for a day or two, the flavor improved, a lot. These may make another appearance in our kitchen, but not for a while-we really need to get back on track with the diet!
will garden for cake 