I love my tea.
Darjeeling would be the undisputed favorite and even within the bouquet of beautiful teas the mist-cradled valley has on offer, my bias would be towards the exquisite silver needle or the coveted first flush.
And I prefer to keep it silly and downright simple.
Boil the water to just the right temperature.
Brew the tea for exactly the right time.
No sugar.
And yes no milk as well.
Heaven !!!
But winters do make me yearn for masala chai.
Tea languorously boiled in generously sweetened milk perfumed with a melange of spices.
A knob of smashed ginger.
A stick of cinnamon.
A pinch of nutmeg.
And while I sip my masala chai this morning, it strikes me that a chai spiced tea cake would be just as divine.
Out come the pots and pans. The flour and the sugar. The eggs and the butter. The fragrant spices.
Beat, whip, fold.
The oven is set to heat.
In goes the chai perfumed batter.
The hour that doesn’t want to end.
Patience, I counsel myself.
And then the moment of truth.
The litmus test.
The skewer comes out clean.
My chai spiced tea cake is ready 🙂
And if you love your tea as much as I do, this tea cake is a must try !! It has all the elements to make your winter evening cosy and warm.
My Chai Spiced Tea cake. Perfumed with a melange of spices. A knob of smashed ginger. A stick of cinnamon. A pinch of nutmeg. Divine.
My Chai Spiced Tea Cake
Ingredients
- 11/4 cups plain flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1/2 cup butter milk
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1 tsp cardamom powder
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
- 2 tsps grated ginger
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- a pinch of salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C, line a cake tin with baking parchment. Butter it well, keep aside.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg powders and salt to aerate the dry mixture. Keep aside.
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter and brown sugar until smooth and somewhat lightened in color.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating for a minute or two and scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl between additions.
- Add the buttermilk, grated ginger, stirring to combine. Finally, stir in the flour mixture into this in two batches. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and beat briefly, to incorporate any sticky residue.
- Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 30-35 odd minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
- Allow to cool onto a cooling rack completely before serving.
Hi i tried this recipe but my batter looks really doughy and sticky. Very hard to work with, I wonder if your batter was the same. I tried half of this recipe. Please help
Love the recepie bt want to make it eggless. Plz help.
I am perplexed: the intro to the recipe mentions a “knob of smashed ginger”, but the ingredient list and instructions include only ginger powder, which I found disappointing. I love the intensity of fresh ginger root!
Does the recipe include fresh ginger?
Thanks for the clarification.
Hi Carol, thanks for stopping by!
You could use either ginger powder or freshly grated ginger. Obviously as you have rightly pointed out, if you would want the ginger to stand out, grated ginger would be better 🙂
Do let me know how it turns out :).
Nice recipe
Loved the presentation and your idea
❤️❤️ @ Nandita… means a lot
Stunning photos and a lovely recipe!