Vanilla chai tea latte cake

I had a chai-normous amount of fun baking this cake. (HA! See what I did there?)

Awful puns aside, I was really pleased with this cake. I immediately knew what I wanted to bake when I saw instant vanilla chai in my bundle of goodies from Whittards: a fluffy, spiced, brown sugar sponge with a sweet, vanilla cream cheese butter icing. The homemade stencil decoration was a last minute addition to cover up my slightly lumpy icing (perhaps my butter was too cold?) and I think it looks fun although I may have been a tad overzealous with my cinnamon dusting as it caught the back of my throat a little when eating the cake!

 
I wasn't sure how much the vanilla chai flavour would come through (I baked this while my biscuit dough was in the fridge) but it worked really well. I thought there was a good balance between warm, cinnamony spices and vanilla sweetness.


It actually took a couple of weeks to get round to baking as I was enjoying just drinking the vanilla chai, but I'm glad I eventually did. I'm definitely making this cake again providing I don't drink all the chai first.

For a bit of fun I put a different flavour of instant chai in each cup for myself, my brother and mum to try. Out of the three we all liked the vanilla chai the most. I liked its sweeter edge over the spiced chai (I do have a raging sweet tooth after all) although the spiced chai was more refreshing and, well, spiced (you can tell I'm going to be inundated with product reviews with descriptions like that.) The chocolate chai was lovely too and makes a nice alternative to hot chocolate if you want something comforting but not as sickly sweet.

Hope you're all enjoying my tea series! I'll be back with my final tea themed bake on Sunday.

Vanilla chai tea latte cake
Own recipe 

Sponges:
200g (7oz) soft light brown sugar
200g (7oz) margarine
3 large (7oz) eggs
170g (6oz) self-raising flour
30g (1oz) instant vanilla chai
2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Cream cheese butter icing:
300g icing sugar
50g softened butter
175g cream cheese
a few drops of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Grease and line two 20cm round cake tins. Beat together the sugar and margarine until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating between each addition, and add a tablespoon of the flour with the last egg to stop the mixture from curdling. Add the flour, chai, milk, cinnamon and vanilla and mix everything together until just fully incorporated. Divide the batter between the two tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 25 minutes until risen, golden and springy to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for around 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

For the icing just beat everything together for a few minutes until light and fluffy and use to fill and top the cake. For some reason the butter stayed a bit lumpy with me but wasn't too visually horrifying and still tasted fine. Finish with a dusting of cinnamon.

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.