Archive for: chai
I have always been a fan of chai teas and often use the warm and spicy flavors found in masala chai for for inspiration when I’m looking for a way to spice things up in baking. Chai Snickerdoodles, for instance, are a favorite variation on classic snickerdoodles in my kitchen.
These scones are loaded with chai spices and have a very warm, satisfying flavor as a result. The spices I used include cinnamon, ginger, allspices, cardamom, coriander and nutmeg. You’ll get the best flavor if you check the dates on your spices to make sure they’re all fresh. The scones themselves are slightly crisp on the outside, and soft and tender inside. They are also full of small pieces of candied ginger that add even more spice to each bite. You can taste the butter right alongside all of those spices, and a hint of almond extract seems to brighten up all of the flavors. The scones are not too sweet, so I finished them off with a little cream cheese glaze.
Don’t be fooled by the long ingredient list for this recipe. The scones are no more difficult to make than any other scones, they simply include a lot of spices for flavor. I prefer to rub the butter in by hand when mixing up scone dough so I get a flakier finished product, but you can also mix this up by pulsing the butter into the flour mixture in the food processor. The glaze is optional, but adds a nice sweetness to the scones and gives them a polished look before serving. If you want to skip it, serve these scones with butter, jam or softened cream cheese – and perhaps a cup of chai tea, too!
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Some recipes look intimidating because they’re long. Sometimes, recipes are long because they are very complex and involve a lot of totally different elements. Sometimes, they’re long because the involve a lot of the same elements. Good spice cakes are like this because they often have a half-dozen more ingredients than a plainer version of the same cake. Luckily for those of us who like spice cakes, that long ingredient list is deceptive and it is still very easy to put a spice cake together.
This cake is infused with some of the flavors that are found in chai tea. I love using these spices in cakes and desserts because it’s such a great blend and makes for a finished product with a great depth of flavor. The cake includes cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and black pepper, as well as vanilla and almond extracts. I mixed in some finely chopped candied ginger to spice things up even further. Aside from the spices, this recipe uses both butter and buttermilk and has a hint of buttery flavor and a tight, tender crumb.
The cake has a sturdy feel to it, which I like because it gives the impression that you can simply cut off a big chunk and take it with you, eating it straight out of a napkin or paper towel without having to fuss with a fork and plate. That said, this cake has such a great variety of spices to it that it goes very well with a drizzle of pastry cream or whipped cream, and can be turned into an elegant plated dessert if you slice it thinly. If you’re going for the more casual version, simply sprinkle your cake with some cinnamon sugar before serving.
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It’s easy to make filled cupcakes and it’s a handy kitchen skill to have because it allows you to do more with your cupcakes than just frost them. You can improve a dry cupcake by infusing some moisture into it with a creamy filling and you can bring in new flavor to an otherwise plain expanse of cake. I filled up these Cardamom Chai Spiced Cupcakes with a lemon frosting for the latter reason, bringing in a lot of bright citrus flavor to give the cake a burst of summertime with each bite.
The cupcakes themselves are flavored with vanilla, cardamom and chai tea. Brew the chai tea as you would if you were going to pour yourself a cuppa (or maybe a bit on the strong side), then let it cool down to room temperature. The chai tea goes into the cake with the milk and other ingredients, giving each bite a subtle hint of all of the spices that go into a chai. I added cardamom to the cake, as well. Not only is it a component in chai tea, but it actually has a slightly citrusy flavor that goes very well with the lemon frosting. The cupcakes are tender with a satisfying, but not overwhelming, spice flavor to them. They are slightly dense, which makes them just right for holding up to the filling and frosting because they are easy to work with without the cake crumbling apart as you handle it.
The frosting and the filling start off the same way, with a lemon-infused sour cream buttercream frosting. Once the frosting is made, about 1/3 of it is set aside and lemon curd is mixed in to make the filling. You don’t loose any of the rich creaminess of the buttercream, but the curd brings out the lemon flavor even more and thins the filling slightly, so it is easier to pipe into the cupcakes. I had a little extra filling leftover from my batch, so I just squeezed it back into the original bowl of frosting and blended it in, adding an extra subtle pop of lemon flavor in the frosting.
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Traditions are very well and good, as are traditional recipes. But every tradition can use a little spice now and again, if for no other reason than to cultivate a new appreciation for the original. This is evidenced to an extreme by the rise of the molecular gastronomy movement, which was accompanied by a hugely renewed interest in traditional comfort food. Here, we’re taking the “spice” literally and merely updating a classic cookie with a few new flavors.
Snickerdoodles, which I have mentioned before, are one of the great standards in American cookies. In spite of their plain appearance and total lack of chocolate (often a deal-breaker for some cookie eaters), the chewy vanilla cookie with the crunchy cinnamon sugar coating is pretty close to perfect in both texture and flavor. It is a unique and hugely satisfying balance that you won’t find in many other cookies. They’re the kind of cookie that absolutely everyone enjoys.
The standard recipe calls for you to roll the unbaked dough in cinnamon sugar before placing the cookies on a cookie sheet. For these, I updated the flavors from the old standbys to a somewhat trendier combination of chai spices, using cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and allspice both in the dough itself and for the coating.
These spiced up cookies cookies are wonderfully crunchy on the outside – thanks to their sugary coating – and chewy on the inside, just like the classic. The chai flavors come through enough to twist the traditionally basic flavor of the cookies, but aren’t strong enough to dissuade die-hard traditionalists from enjoying a classic.
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I usually have a small jar of pumpkin pie spice sitting around. It’s easy to make, but in the morning it is very convenient to have some ready to go when I want to spice up my oatmeal on a chilly morning. A few weeks ago, I picked up a jar at Trader Joe’s and was very surprised to discover that it tasted nothing like the classic pumpkin pie spice mix that I know and love. I also discovered that it’s not necessarily the greatest thing to blindside your tastebuds shortly after waking up. Their version of pumpkin pie spice included lots of cardamom, ginger, cloves, pepper and cinnamon. Call me traditional, but that’s not what I want my pumpkin pie spice to taste like.
The point of this little story is that when I was deciding what recipe I wanted to try from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, I realized that the spice combination in the Chai Latte Cupcakes was very similar to my non-pumpkin pie spice mix. I made the cakes and used it instead of the original recipe’s combination with great results. The flavor was very spicy and chai-like, but not too aggressive.
The only complaint that I have is that I don’t think these are actually cupcakes. They have a less refined, more muffin-like texture than I want for a cake. I would have added more sugar if I wanted to try for more cakiness from this recipe. Fortunately, the muffins went beautifully with a cup or tea or coffee and, as they weren’t frosted with anything more than a bit of spiced up confectioners’ sugar, I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about having them for breakfast instead of dessert. And this time I wasn’t surprised by the spicing – just pleased by it.
By the way, these turned out just fine with regular yogurt instead of the soy, so don’t worry if you need to make a small substitution to make the recipe fit the ingredients that you keep at home.
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