At first, the strawberry goodies caught my eye and there were tons of options involving strawberry. Just as i was about to settle on some strawberry cupcakes, I found the Chai Cake. My obsession with chai started long ago, but it was only on Christmas Eve that I learned how to make it from scratch and I've been drinking it every day since. I LOVE chai! So of course, I had to make the chai cake.
This version of the recipe calls for chai from scratch, although chai tea bags can be substituted. I ended up changing the chai recipe a bit as their were a few (in my mind) key ingredients missing (cloves, black pepper pods). I spiced up her recipe a bit and made it in milk as directed.
After straining the chai, you mix 1/3 of it with the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla. This mixture then gets set aside and you move on to the dry ingredients. Once the dry ingredients are combined, you slowly add butter and the remaining chai milk. This is *supposed* to be beaten until light and fluffy. Unfortunately for me, this is the point where my hand mixer died. I originally discussed this hand mixer during the holiday cooking challenge.
Without the mixer my ability to beat was diminished, but my resolve to eat delicious chai cake was not! Luckily, most of the heavy work was done so I just finished a little mixing by hand and then slowly added the egg mixture to the batter. In the end, you have a lovely, thick, fragrant batter that you want to eat with a spoon.
The Whisk Kid made hers a five layer cake, but I do not have the resources for such an endeavor. I have exactly 3 cake pans to choose from and none of them ideal. So, I decided to make a double layer cake using my pie tin.
The pie tin adds some texture around the outside of the cake, but it's not so bad. Since I only have one tin, I made the first layer, washed the tin, then baked the second layer. By this time I was towards the end of the recipe and stumbled upon the part where you have to cool the cakes in the fridge for at least four hours.
WHAT!!??? Four hours? It was already seven o'clock! I was devastated that I wasn't going to be able to eat my cake that day, but I'd already put so much time an effort in that I didn't want to risk ruining it. Oh well, I guess I'll eat it tomorrow. Lesson learned- read the ENTIRE recipe before beginning.
Before disappointedly starting dinner, I made the AMAZING frosting. This ginger-honey cream is so good and really easy. Just cream cheese, butter, honey and ground ginger. I will definitely be using this cream recipe in the future and not just for the chai cake. With that I wrapped the cakes, put them in the fridge and tried to forget about it.
The next morning was so exciting! I practically sprinted to the kitchen and pulled out the beautiful cake layers. As I wasn't making a five layer cake, I halved the cream recipe. With that amount I had just enough cream to put a nice thick layer in the middle and then frost the top. Sadly, there wasn't enough for the sides, but I wasn't bothered. Kind of looks like a big sandwich cookie this way, right?
I cut myself and big slice and dug in. Was it worth the time, effort and hours of waiting?
HOLY COW, yes! This is one amazing cake. The cream is out of this world good and the cake itself is the perfect combination of dense, moist and bursting with flavor. The chai gives it a really yummy warmth that is difficult to describe. I highly recommend this cake and you can find the recipe from the Whisk Kid here: Chai Cake with Ginger-Honey Cream. If you'd like to use my recipe for the chai- I did it as follows:
Teresa's Chai for the Cake
1 1/3 cup milk
12 black tea bags
15 cardamon pods, crushed
1 tsp fennel
6 whole cloves
4 black peppercorns
1/2 inch of ginger, peeled and grated
This makes a pretty potent chai which is great for this cake. When I make my chai tea for lattes I do it a bit differently:
Teresa's Chai Latte
A small saucepan of water
1 or 2 black tea bags
6 cardamon pods, crushed
a pinch of fennel
3 whole cloves
2 black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon of chopped ginger
I put all of this over medium heat and let it simmer for a few minutes. Then remove from heat and strain. You can add sugar to taste and drink the chai just like this, or make it into a latte by filling a mug 1/3 with chai and the rest with hot milk. I put the extra chai in jars and keep them in the fridge. You can drink it all week!
What's your favorite cake? Post your answer in the comments- bonus points if you link a recipe for me to try!
3 comments:
Love the cake pictures, my cakes rarely come out of the pans that nicely. I just made a red velvet cake the other day, with a cream cheese, coconut, pecan frosting. It's my own recipe that I came up with last year from combining and tweaking several others that I came across. However, I didn't write down my original recipe so need to make it another time to see what I need to do differently. I'll pass it along as soon as I make it again and figure out the issue. I also have decided to make more cakes this year to perfect my cake baking. The only problem, I mostly get stuck eating the majority of the cakes I make. Hope all is well.
~ Tort
Question- When you say black pepper pods you mean the little balls right? Like 2 peppercorns?
Tort- thanks so much for the comment. Definitely pass that recipe along when you figure it out.
JF- Peppercorns!!!! Yes. I could not think of the word. I've updated the blog and thank you for the assistance :-)
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