Chai Cake with Honey-Ginger Cream

Monday, April 20, 2009

Chai Cake with Honey-Ginger Cream

For April’s installment of the Cake Slice, the bakers voted for a tea based cake. Chai tea was the cake’s main flavor components. Chai tea literally translates to “spiced tea”; some of the spices found in chai tea can be pepper, cardamom, and cinnamon. A common practice is to mix the tea with milk to make lattes. That is exactly what the recipe instructed to do.

The chai tea bags steeped in warm milk, were cooled and then used in the cake mix. The tea tinted the cake to a lovely mushroom color. The recipe also called for more cinnamon and cardamom, which added pleasant warmth to the cake. The cake itself was light and airy, very much like a chiffon. Keeping with chai tradition, honey sweetens the cake's icing.

The recipe took a conventional cream cheese icing and added more “chai” flavors to it. To start, it called for honey as a sweetener. Make sure to use a very liquid honey to ensure that one gets an icing that will drizzle down the sides of the cake. I do not believe the honey I used had the fluidity called for in the recipe. I say this because I did not achieve the "icicle effect" on the sides of my cake, as the recipe stated I would.

Next, the recipe asked for fresh grated ginger. I did not have any fresh ginger, but I used dried ginger and the icing seemed unaffected. In the end, the exotic flavors in the cake and icing made this a wonderful cake. Definitely worthy of a second bake.

Print Recipe: Chai Cake with Honey-Ginger Cream
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