Chai Cupcakes

So, my friend Jen from the Elka Almanac sent me a link to a chai cupcake that required 3 sticks of butter for the recipe, as well as an additional 2 sticks for the icing, and of course it turned into a thread about Paula Deen.

(picture from guardian.co.uk)

Now, I like butter like any other hot blooded American, but I figure if you have to open a second box to finish a recipe there might be something wrong.  Naturally, I thought I'd look through my Vegan cupcake book, and lo and behold there is a recipe for Chai cupcakes, with hardly any fat in the recipe at all!  Just a 1/2 cup of yogurt and 1/4 cup of oil.  There's also 1 cup of milk which is the wet for this recipe.

These seemed like a nice alternative to the butterlicious version Jen had shown me, so I thought, why not?  I used non-vegan ingredients, since that was what I had on hand.

First, heat up 1 cup of milk (soy, rice, dairy) in a small sauce pan until just under boiling.

Remove from heat, and add 4 bags of black tea.  I chose Irish Breakfast.

Cover and let it steep for 10 minutes.

In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/3 cup flour

with 1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp of salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

and a pinch of black pepper.

Once 10 minutes are up, remove the tea bags and squeeze any excess liquid out of them and discard.

Remeasure the milk just in case a little bit more needs to be added to make 1 cup.

Whisk the milk tea together with 1/2 plain or vanilla yogurt (dairy/soy) and 1/4 cup oil

3/4 cup of sugar

and 1 tsp vanilla.

Whisk until most of the lumps from the yogurt are gone.

Add the dry to the wet and mix to combine, again, so there aren't many lumps.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Now for the topping, the book suggested I dust them with a spice mix, but I decided to add a bit more fat.  I made cream cheese frosting.

Once that was made and the were cakes frosted, I dusted them with the spice mix.

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp cinnamon

and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg.

Mix, and using a sieve sprinkle on top of your cakes.

Oh God, this was so tasty, and slightly chewy for some reason.  The spice, and the tea really make it taste like chai, and the cream cheese frosting it like the foam on a latte.  So awesome!

I hope you enjoyed this post.  I certainly enjoyed making (and eating) these little cakes, even without 5 sticks of butter.

Enjoy!