High Altitude London Fog Layer Cake
This London fog layer cake has three layers of fluffy vanilla cake infused with earl grey tea. With tea leaves in the buttercream, too, there's plenty of earl grey flavor in this delicious cake.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- 6-inch Round Cake Pans (x3)
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
Ingredients
Cake
- ¾ cup whole milk, steaming hot
- 3 earl grey tea bags, divided
- 1 ½ cups + 2 tbsp cake flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 large egg white, room temperature (save the yolk for another use)
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Buttercream
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 earl grey tea bag
- 1 tsp meringue powder, optional
- ⅛ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp milk, if needed
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Lightly spray three 6-inch round cake pans with non-stick baking spray.
- Heat the milk until steaming hot. Add two of the tea bags to the milk. Let the tea steep in the milk for 30 minutes while the milk cools.
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut open the third tea bag, and whisk the loose tea leaves into the flour mixture.
- Remove the tea bags from the milk.
- To the dry ingredients, add the milk, egg, egg white, melted butter, oil, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth, about 20 seconds.
- Divide the batter between the cake pans. Bake the cakes for about 20-25 minutes, until the tops spring bag when gently touched and a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Set the pans on a cooling rack, and cool the cakes completely before frosting.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for one minute, until smooth.
- In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar, the tea leaves from one tea bag, meringue powder, and salt. With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar mixture by spoonfuls. Add the vanilla.
- Increase the speed to medium, and whip the buttercream for 4-5 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl down several times, until very light and fluffy. Only add the milk if the buttercream is too stiff. Turn the speed down to "stir", and mix for one more minute.
- Remove the cakes from the pans. Stack, fill and frost the cakes with the buttercream. For a simple decoration, I used tip 1M to pipe swoops around the edge of the cake.
Notes
You can use any brand of earl grey tea, but keep in mind that it contains caffeine, unless you use decaf tea.
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