Golden Chai Layer Cake

This post was originally published by Heather Baird on Sprinklebakes as a part of a Fair Trade USA Recipe Rally competition. It has been shortened slightly for the Numi Tea Garden Blog.

This Golden Chai cake, is richly spiced with cinnamon, cardamom and ginger. It’s covered in honey-cream cheese frosting and together that makes the cake reminiscent of my favorite cup of tea.

Each year at Mother’s Day I partner with Fair Trade USA to help raise awareness about the important work they do to empower women. Did you know that women produce half of the world’s food yet only own 2% of land? (Wow!) Fair Trade provides women with resources to start businesses and helps provide maternity leave and childcare. This helps increase educational opportunities and better medical care for their families. All we have to do to help this effort is to buy Fair Trade brands! It’s so easy – it’s a no-brainer!

Here’s a quick how-to video with some very dramatic Chopin music (Fantaisie Impromptu, if anyone is interested). I think it’s good to have a visual when building a tall layer cake such as this one.

How seriously adorable is the printed Chuao chocolate bar on this cake? It makes a fitting decoration because the dark chocolate has crisp bits of caramelized honey throughout.

The frosting is lovely with a hint of honey. Like most cream cheese frosting, it’s soft (not stiff) so filling and frosting your layers may cause some wobbling to-and-fro. Just be sure to chill the cake well and the frosting will set firm.

Try it yourself:

Golden Chai Layer Cake

 

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Heather’s notes: I made this cake in three 6-inch cake pans, but you can also use two 8-inch pans, which is a more standard size. Use about a 6 tea bags steeped in 2 cups of water to make the strongly brewed tea required for this recipe. Leftover tea can be used in the frosting to thin the icing to spreading consistency.

Author: Heather Baird, Sprinklebakes.com

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: one six layer 6-inch cake (or four layer 8-inch cake)

Ingredients

• Cake:
• ½ cup (1/4 lb.) unsalted butter, softened
• 1¾ cups (350g) sugar
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2¼ cups (255g) all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon Frontier ground cinnamon
• 3½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1¼ cups (300 ml) strongly brewed Numi Golden Chai tea
  
  
• Frosting:
• ½ cup (1/4 lb.) unsalted butter, softened
• 8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 lb. confectioners’ sugar
• 2 teaspoons wildflower honey
  
  
• Ganache and décor:
• 6 ounces Guittard semisweet chocolate chips
• 5 ounces heavy whipping cream
• Rosemary sprigs
• 6 oz. Fresh raspberries
• 1 Chuao honeycomb dark chocolate bar and other assorted chocolates

Instructions

1. Make the cakes: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray three 6-inch pans with flour-based baking spray (or grease and flour pans).
   
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt and add to the mixer bowl in three batches alternating with the strongly brewed Golden Chai. Begin and end with flour. Scrape down the bowl and beat again on high speed for 1 minute.
   
3. Divide the batter evenly into pans no more than ⅔ full. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a tooth pick tester comes out clean when inserted into the centers. Let the cakes cool slightly in the pans. Remove and let them cool completely on a wire rack. Level the cakes if needed (these don’t crown much). Use a cake leveler or a large serrated knife to cut each cake layer in half horizontally so that you have 6 layers.
   
4. Make the frosting: Combine the butter and cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat until combined. Add sugar and honey. Beat again until well incorporated. If frosting is too stiff to spread, add cooled chai tea 1 tablespoon at a time until spreading consistency.
   
5. Fill layers with frosting and stack. Insert a long skewer or lollipop stick into the center of the cake to stabilize the cake for frosting the outside. Cover the outside of the cake with frosting and remove most of it using a bench scraper or cake smoother. Chill until firmly set, about 2 hours.
   
6. Make the ganache: In a heat-proof microwave-safe bowl, combine the cream and chocolate. Heat at 30 second intervals until the mixture can be stirred smooth. Let cool slightly. Pour the ganache onto the center of the chilled cake and push some of the ganache toward the edges with the back of a spoon creating a ‘drip’ effect.
   
7. Garnish the top of the cake with fresh rosemary, raspberries and chocolate bar. Store cake in the refrigerator loosely covered in plastic wrap.

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