For the love of Chai

I first heard reference made to chai in the May 08 Daring Baker's Challenge, I remember a fellow baker saying they had done a chai flavoured cake, I did some research but had not delved much further into it at the time.

Some time later, I found a box of vanilla chai tea bags at the supermarket and decided to give them a try, I loved the combination, it was delicious. Being me, I was not going to be satisfied using the store bought version of something I could do at home so I did some more research and was happy to see that there was a recipe for Chai Masala in my "Fresh Indian" cookbook (great book!), love struck instantly!

Then a while back, mom made "Chai Bread" from a Betty Crocker recipe. So when I saw Sky High Chai Cake with Honey-Ginger Frosting done by the Cake Slice Bakers, I wondered why I hand't thought of doing chai flavoured cake before.

I made a couple of adjustments to the recipe as follows:

* I made a very strong chai using the milk instead of tea bags, I didn't have any ginger at the time so that was omitted.
* Since I had not put ginger in when making the chai, I used 1 1/2t vanilla and a 1/2t ginger extract.
* Doubled all the spices and added an 1/8t of ground cloves
* For the frosting I used a bit more than 1/2t of fresh ginger

The chai flavour was very pronounced and I was really happy with that, the cake tasted better the following morning as all the flavours had melded together by then. The frosting was a tad too sweet for my liking but worked well with the cake, I would probably add even more fresh ginger the next time I do this cake. Now I'm not a lover of cake (I like making them, but it's not my favourite thing to eat), but I loved this one, maybe it had something to do with the chai ;-)