Southern Sweet Tea Cake

My mom recently discovered this sweet tea flavored vodka and she brought some home the other day. We tasted it and it tastes like someone added a lot of vodka to their sweet tea. Which I have no clue why anyone would want to do that. I'm not a fan of vodka so this isn't something I'd drink straight and I can't think of what to mix it with. But my brain got to churning and thought about Sweet Tea cupcakes and cakes. I took my basic yellow cake recipe and substituted this sweet tea vodka for the dairy (milk, sour cream, yogurt). The outcome was OK but the vodka taste was a little strong, which I thought was weird. But I stayed with my idea. This time I made a batch of the same yellow cake but I brewed myself some really strong tea and used that instead of milk, yogurt or sour cream. That outcome was better, not a strong tea flavor but still good. Next time I might brew even stronger tea.

So, I wanted the buttercream to match of course. Right? So, in this case I just used a simple buttercream: 1 part butter, 2 parts powdered sugar. I brewed some more really strong tea and used that in place of vanilla. I added just enough til it started to change in color, I think 3 T. Then tasted it. Still not very tea-ish but a good start. I frosted a cupcake and tasted. Still not very tea-ish. So I added a teaspoon of lemon extract (I would have used real lemon but I didn't have any), adjusted the powdered sugar cause it was getting too loose and tasted again (too much of this tasting could start to show at the beach, if you know what I mean). It tastes just like sweet tea with lemon. So cool. I frosted another cupcake and tasted again (oh dear lord, again) and it was so good. I still think I need to make really really strong tea. But I'm working on it.

So, if you have any ideas about what to do with that sweet tea vodka, let me know. I don't drink vodka straight so if you have ideas of what to mix it with let me know.