Casey’s Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Glaze

I made Chai Cake the same weekend I made Beer Pie, which was a weekend that some of our close friends were coming to visit. Luka and Clara were coming down from Massachusetts, just for funzies, and Micah and Casey were coming out from Brooklyn, since Casey and I had some work to do to prepare a proposal for a workshop we’re submitting for an upcoming conference.

We had some hanging out in the kitchen time as I threw this together and we all made a big kitchen mess, and Luka drank chai. Casey ended up loving this cake so hard, though, so I’m calling it Casey’s Chai Cake, and the next time I make it, I’ll invite her over. <3

I've been meaning to experiment with tea in cake for a while, and I've had several reminders lately. There will probably be more, too, since we just ran out of tea, so I put in a new order of loose leaf from The Tea Table, including for some Lavender Butterfly Tea, which I can’t wait to play with. A really good cup of tea is one of my favorite things in the world. A recipe for Earl Grey Tea Cakes is soon to come…

Ingredients

Cake:

1 and 1/3 cups of milk
6 chai tea bags, without added sweetner (I used a mix Twinings Chai and Twinings Pumpkin Chai, though I have some loose chai coming, too, for next time)
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1 and 3/4 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon white sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 sticks butter

Glaze:

3 tablespoons honey
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
milk to desired consistency (I probably used 1/4 cup)
pinch of salt (to cut the sweetness a bit)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 Degrees F. Grease and lightly flour a 10 cup bundt pan.

In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer over low-medium heat. Remove from heat. Add the tea bags and allow to steep for 5-6 minutes. Remove the tea bags and cool the milk completely.

Meanwhile, cream the butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and honey until light and fluffy, in a stand mixer or a large bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine the remaining dry cake ingredients. Stir together the all purpose flour, whole wheat pastry flour, salt, cinnamon, and cardamom.

Add the milk and the dry mixture to the creamed mixture, mixing them together, alternating between milk and dry mixture until they are completely combined.

Pour into the prepared bundt pan. Bake on the bottom rack at 325 for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile, make the glaze. Mix the ginger, salt, and the confectioner’s sugar together. Add the honey and a tiny bit of milk, stirring until all the sugar is absorbed, adding more milk as needed.

Apply glaze while the cake is warm. The glaze will soak into the cake a bit and leave a shiny sweetness on the crunchy peaks.

Beer Pie (with Pecans & Walnuts)

I joined an online baking community recently, and it is awesome to see what everyone around the world is baking. Since St. Patrick’s Day is coming up here in the USA, someone suggested making a beer pie. I made a bunch of changes to the recipe, like adding chocolate and walnuts, but it was a great help to have since I’ve never made a pecan pie before. Charlie loves pecan pie, though, and he said that this was one of the best things I’ve ever made. It did not last very long!

I went to our local beverage store, and I asked for a recommendation on a good stout, since that’s not what I usually drink. I was hoping to get something like Leffe Brune, but I was told that it’s only available in Belgium, which is where I sampled it. He asked me if I wanted Guinness, and I said that I wanted something with a chocolaty finish, so he pointed me to Lion Stout, a brew from Sri Lanka. I tried a sip before I put it in the pie, and it was perfect – very dark and flavorful.

As usual, I cut back on the sugar a bit, so this pie really tastes like like the chocolaty stout (so much so that I wouldn’t recommend serving this at a family event).

Ingredients

1 unbaked 9″ pie crust (I cheated here and used a frozen one from the store)
12 ounces Lions Stout (or any other dark, sweet stout)
2 tbsp Butter
1 cup light corn syrup
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cup pecan halves
1 cup walnuts
3 eggs
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
egg wash (if desired)
pecans for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Pour beer into a pan and heat on medium. Reduce to a syrup-ish consistency, then let it cool slightly.

Melt the butter in a separate pan.

Combine the reduced beer with the melted butter, corn syrup, brown sugar, and flour with a wire whisk until thoroughly blended. Add the walnuts and pecans.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add a small amount of the warm syrup mixture to the eggs before stirring the eggs into the syrup mixture. (This evens out the temperatures so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs in your warm syrup.)

If desired, brush the crust with your egg wash.

Pour the filling into the crust, mixing in the chocolate chips as you pour. Garnish with pecans.

Bake in the center of the oven on a baking tray in case of spills! for approximately 40 minutes or until a knife stuck in the center comes out clean.

Cool before serving.