Chai latte biscuits

I love chai tea, or "ninja tea" as it's referred to in my family as mum once asked if I was going to order a tai chi latte in a cafe. We like our tea martial arts style.

 

Sadly I do not own any ninja shaped biscuits cutters, however I do have a cute teapot shaped cutter which I've had for about 3 years but never used. Perfect for tea flavoured biscuits!

 

I was a bit late jumping on the chai tea band wagon, only discovering it last year, so when Whittards offered me some flavours from their instant chai tea range to bake with I was more than a little bit excited.

 

For the biscuits I altered a Peggy Porschen biscuit recipe, adding chocolate chai to one half of the dough and the spiced chai to the other. I piped melted chocolate on to the chocolate chai batch to enhance the chocolate flavour which I felt was a nice touch visually and flavour wise. Both batches were subtley spiced and crispy and had a lovely, creamy after taste; surprisingly moreish and perfect for dipping in a milky drink, although I photographed mine with an ordinary chai tea to keep the chai theme going.

 

My only complaint is that a few of the biscuits were a bit tough/chewy as I must have overhandled the dough when rerolling but other than that I was very happy with them.

 

I think the instant chai worked really well in the biscuits. Now I'm debating whether I should try adding some of my flavoured hot chocolates to my baking.

Stay tuned for some more tea themed bakes! I'm going to have a bit of a tea series and will post my next bake within the next few days.

 

Chocolate chai and spiced chai latte biscuits

Recipe altered from Peggy Porschen's chocolate teaspoon biscuits in Boutique Baking.

200g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

100g soft light brown sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg

175g plain flour and 25g instant chocolate chai

175g plain flour and 25g instant spiced chai

Line a couple of baking trays with greaseproof paper. Beat together the butter, salt and sugars until smooth. Beat the egg in another bowl and slowly add to the butter mixture until fully incorporated. Divide the mixture between two bowls and add the flour and chocolate chai powder to one half and flour and spiced chai powder to the other. Mix until the doughs just come together, gather into balls and wrap them separately in cling film. Chill for 30 minutes.

Place the dough on a floured surface and knead briefly. Roll the dough 3-4mm thick and cut out shapes using a cutter. (I used different cutters for each batch so I wouldn't get confused between flavours.) Place the biscuits onto the prepared trays and chill again for another 30 minutes. Meanwhile preheat your oven to 175C/Gas 3.

Bake for 6 minutes or until the biscuits spring back to touch (mine took about 10 minutes). Once baked, leave them on their trays to cool for about 30 minutes. Decorate with piped icing or melted chocolate once fully cool although they work absolutely fine as plain biscuits too.

Disclaimer: I was sent tea products to bake with as Whittards recognised that I'm a cake/biscuit obsessed crazy tea lady. They're a brand I enjoy and have purchased from before. I was not paid for this post and all opinions expressed are my own.