Forest Tea Ceremony

'Walking slowly through a forest,

falling autumn-colored leaves

gray backed squirrel runs to safety

scared to see you walking by...'

                                                     -Forest by Tudor Lodge

On a warm winter day, the calm before the storm, I set off on a morning walk in the woods to gather pine needles. The needles of the eastern white pine can be fermented into a sprite-like drink. No, not a fairy sprite, but rather the lemon lime soda. It's very important to make sure you are identifying the correct tree, as some species of pine can be toxic. Anyway, that is a recipe for another day. Today, I was gathering the needles to adorn the table for a special tea ceremony I planned... 

'Fill your pockets full with pinecones

scattered on the emerald grass...'

I was gifted a bag of Icelandic moss tea for the holidays by my boyfriend Thomas Brown. Along with the tea, he got me a bag of candied baby pinecones! I had first discovered these edible forest treasures at a coffee shop near my old library job in the city. They made special drinks for the holidays and one of the seasonal sips featured a pinecone garnish. They are soft, sweet and chewy. I didn't want to just eat the whole bag, so I dreamed up this recipe for chocolate pine nut cupcakes with spirulina frosting. Here it is...

Ingredients:

1 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup olive oil

3/4 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a mini muffin pan. Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl first, then combine sugar, eggs and oil in another bowl. Mix all the ingredients together with the extracts and the pine nuts. Bake for 35 minutes. To make the frosting, combine powdered sugar with milk or cream until it reaches desired consistency. Add spirulina powder to make it green. Top each frosted cake with a candied pinecone.

I served the cakes with the moss tea, garnished with licorice root sticks to stir with! The tea was bitter and strong, but the cakes were very earthy and sweet. I was worried the spirulina flavor would overwhelm the taste, but it harmonized with the nutty chocolate and sweet cones. I ended up with enough batter to bake a small cake in addition to the cupcake treats and will save it to eat with coffee for brunch during the upcoming snowstorm.