I have to admit: I never really got into the whole chai tea latte trend. I may have ordered one at Starbucks once just to see what all the rage was about (or I may have tried a friend’s), and I’ve gotta be honest. I really didn’t get the hype. In all honesty, it kinda tasted like dirt to me…

To give chai tea some credit, they do smell great. The aromas of the spice with a bit of sweetness do just make me feel all warm and tingly inside. So what does that say? I prefer chai as a candle scent? That’s gotta exist, right?

Well, I may not have enjoyed it as a drink, but the scent hasn’t fully closed the chai door for me. I knew deep down there would be some other way or form I could enjoy that spiced sweet flavor. Then this past winter, I watched about 40 hours straight of British Bake Off, and quite a number of bakes kept catching my attention and I quickly realized they all had a common flavor theme: spiced chai. After about another 20 hours of binging Bake Off and a couple hours of recipe research, I found a recipe that seemed on my level of baking skills to try out, made my way to the spice aisle of the grocery store, and I was ready to start pre-heating the oven and get baking.

Big giant kudos to Sarah over at Broma Bakery for the beautiful food photography skills that made wanting to learn this recipe irresistible and writing up such easy to follow directions for this Chai Spice Cake with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting.

In all honesty, the toughest part about this whole thing was finding the cardamom in the spice aisle! I also wasn’t feeling confident enough to splurge on some edible gold leaves, and gave up on finding whole cinnamon sticks after trips to two different grocery stores. BUT, blueberries were on sale so my topping and design took its own turn, and I was quite happy with the result. And in the end, I did find my chai flavoring nook: cakes.

I’m definitely my harshest critic, and the lopsidedness of the cake was really getting to me. It’s pretty subtle in the shot, but the middle part of my cakes rose up higher than the outer part of the cake. I did a bit more research into how the professionals solve for this, and think I’ll try some cutting/shaping techniques next time I make a multi-layer cake. This video from Everyday Food was super informative for cutting and frosting even layers. I tried to mimic Sarah’s technique from Broma Bakery, and create a somewhat unfinished look, but think it ended up being an in-between of thick frosting in some parts and just enough in some.

Practice makes perfect, and I’ll definitely be trying this one again!

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