Looking for a dye-free Valentine’s Day cake? This Sweetheart Cinnamon Cake with Glaze has a pretty pink color because it’s made with all natural cinnamon herbal tea bags.
It is possible to make a pink Valentine’s Day dessert without any red food coloring and this delicious cake is proof!
There is NO artificial food coloring use in this cake, but you will need my secret ingredient: Bigelow Sweetheart Cinnamon Tea.
The Sweetheart Cinnamon tea bags are steeped in hot water, making a very concentrated herbal tea. As you can see, it makes a beautiful red color.
The concentrated tea-infused water is whisked with powdered sugar, making a lovely, all-natural pink color for the glaze. I love how it turned out!
You’ll also use the Sweetheart Cinnamon tea bags to give the same flavor to the cake mix. To do this, you’ll steep the tea bags in milk, which is added to the cake batter.
I used quite a bit of glaze on my cake, but you can definitely use less, if you prefer. After glazing, I added little cinnamon red hot hearts around the top of the cake (suggestion of my Courtney). Â To get them to stick, I dabbed a bit of the glaze on the cake with a toothpick, then I set the red hot down on top of the dap of glaze.
NOTE: The cinnamon red hot hearts I used are NOT dye-free, so if you need to avoid artificial colors, I would recommend you leave those off.
Our Sweetheart Cinnamon Cake was gone within 2 days, but I still have plenty of Sweetheart Cinnamon tea bags leftover. A ‘cuppa tea anyone?
Here’s the complete recipe — enjoy!
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Sweetheart Cinnamon Cake with Glaze
Description
Looking for a dye-free Valentine’s Day cake? This Sweetheart Cinnamon Cake with Glaze has a pretty pink color because it’s made with all natural cinnamon herbal tea bags.
Ingredients
- 1 cup milk
- 6 Bigelow Sweetheart Cinnamon Tea Bags
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2 oz sticks unsalted butter (8, softened)
- 2 cups of sugar
- 4 eggs
Sweetheart Cinnamon Tea Glaze
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 6 Bigelow Sweetheart Cinnamon Tea Bags
- 1 pound powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350º degrees F. Butter and flour Bundt cake pan.
- In a small saucepan, heat milk just to boiling and then immediately turn off heat. Add 6 tea bags to the milk and allow to steep for 6 minutes. Remove and strain tea bags and set aside to cool.
- In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy with an electric mixer (or use stand mixer). Beat in eggs, one at a time. With spoon, mix in dry ingredients and cooled tea/milk mixture into the butter/sugar mixture, just until combined. Spoon batter into prepared Bundt cake pan.
- Bake 40-50 minutes, or golden brown and when a knife inserted in cake, it comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Flip out onto large cooling rack. Allow to cool completely. Let cool in the pan. Glaze with Bigelow Sweetheart Cinnamon Glaze.
To make Sweetheart Cinnamon Tea Glaze:
- In a small saucepan, bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil. Place 6 tea bags in a small bowl. Pour boiling water over tea bags and allow to steep for 6 minutes. Remove and strain tea bags.Place powdered sugar in a large bowl and gradually pour in tea mixture into the powdered sugar, while continually whisking. Whisk until smooth and desired consistency.
- NOTE: You may not need all of the tea for your icing. If you happen to thin out your glaze too much, you can always repair it by whisking in more powdered sugar.
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Adapted from this Bigelow tea cake recipe
Christine | Mid-Life Croissant says
What a great idea! My daughter is currently looking over my shoulder and purring “we have to maaaake that!” and she’s right!
Karly says
This is such a pretty cake! Thanks for linking up with What’s Cookin’ Wednesday!
Mimi says
How very clever! Your cake looks and sounds scrumptious! Mimi xxx
Gina says
I don’t make cake nearly enough. This recipe looks so interesting and different from what I usually make. I love the idea of adding in some tea. Pinning for later!
creativejewishmom/sara says
Thanks so much for sharing this idea for all natural food coloring on craft schooling Sunday, really great! Too many people just go for the bad stuff for the sake of looks without regarding health issues, sad! And the tea idea is great as there are so many other teas that could also give color, like wild berry tea which is also a deep reddish purple color, gotta try it…..probably better tasting than coloring with beet juice which also works.
Rachel B says
This sounds yummy but I do have a question- how much of the “tea” kind of flavor do you get verses just tasting the cinnamon?
brandie says
Hi Rachel!
Since the Sweetheart Cinnamon Tea Bags are herbal, there is actually no tea in them at all, so you don’t get any tea flavor. It’s mostly all cinnamon flavor.
Carol Smith says
What a beautiful looking cake. And what a great idea with the tea. Thank you for sharing it. Can’t wait to try it.
Ali says
Woot! You have been featured this week at Recipe Sharing Monday! The new link party is up and I’d love to see you back. Have a great week. 🙂
tanya says
Thank you so much for taking the time to share this with Saturday Share With Us. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow to share some more!
Holly Lefevre says
This is beautiful. I want to try this so badly. I made a cake with green tea and the tea added so much…this is on my must make list!
tanya says
I think it’s absolutely brilliant that you used the cinnamon tea bags!! I love the natural pink color and flavor! Incredible! I would love it if you’d like this up to Saturday Share with Us!
http://www.lemonsforlulu.com/2013/02/09/saturday-share-with-us/
brandie says
Thanks Tanya! It’s really great for people who like to avoid artificial food coloring. Thank you for sharing your Saturday Share with Us link party…I linked up!
Anita says
So pretty and sounds so tempting! I love the idea of using tea for flavoring!
Jeni says
I love this cake! It looks and sounds delicious!
Shauna {The Best Blog Recipes} says
Holy cow this cake looks so delicious! Just saw your link over at Five Little Chef’s link party and thought I’d come over and check it out 🙂
I’d love for you to link up a few recipes at my weekend link party! http://thebestblogrecipes.blogspot.com/
Hope to see you there!
danielle says
This cake is so pretty! thanks for linking up to Friday Food Frenzy!
Jen @ BigBinder says
Brandie this is AWESOME! I hate hate hate food coloring and am always looking for ways to use something else instead. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s just – not right 🙂 But this is perfect timing for Valentine’s day!
Kara says
That is such a pretty, yummy looking cake! You are so creative. I would have never thought to use tea bags for the coloring.
Amanda says
This cinnamon sweetheart cake looks divine! I have a get together coming up and this looks super simple.
Wendys Hat says
This is the most adorable and yummy sounding cake. How creative to use the tea bags to flavor the frosting. I want to try this! Thanks!
Danyelle says
YUM – Looks amazing and so tasty! I love how you used tea, I’m currently obsessed with using tea in new ways!
Lolo says
Oh my goodness, that cinnamon cake looks beautiful! Job well done!
BinomialBaker says
This looks amazing! I picked you as my host favorite for Foodie Friends Friday!
Emmi says
Brandie that looks amazing! You are super creative. I might have to try this out myself!
Winnie says
It’s a gorgeous cake!!
And I loooooooove your idea of using the tea.
We don’t have the same brand here but I can use a different brand
Thanks so much for sharing
Alea says
I haven’t seen the sweetheart cinnamon tea, but I sure do want some and a piece of that lovely cake too!
Amanda Fraijo-Tobin (@FraijoManda) says
How pretty Brandie!
Ashley says
Ooh it’s so cute and yummy looking! might be a fun treat to make for the hubby and lil one when they get home from work and school on v-day 🙂
Colleen, The Smart Cookie Cook says
This cake is so gorgeous! I’m sure that tea added some awesome flavor. What a good idea!
Eleanor says
Oh if I was not on my diet, I would be knocking on your door!
Becca H. says
This looks so yummy! I’ll have to look for those tea bags! Love cinnamon!
brandie says
Thank you, Becca! Definitely look for them…I really like them. And it’s caffeine-free so I like that I have enjoy it before bed.