Chai Cake

Ooh, oozy.

A birthday is a perfect excuse for some cake experimentation, right? ...kidding, it's actually a week early, but I decided to go for it anyway. For this'n I combined my love of chai lattes with inventing interesting desserts. Voila!

Steepin'

I started with the ppk's Chai Latte Cupcake recipe, basically just doubling it and then baking it in two 8" cake pans. The cake itself turned out relatively well... I've read  that these particular cupcakes are more muffin-y than others in VCTOtW... next time I'll try tweaking the recipe to fluff it up a bit.

Next is where my creative juices actually began flowing. Rather than a logical and bee-filled honey icing, I decided to try out my two favorite tea sweeteners: agave nectar and maple syrup (obv the real stuff). My recipe was approximately:

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
8oz vegan cream cheese
1/4 cup softened Earth Balance
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbs. fresh grated ginger

Blend together, and... yum! I decided to add blackberries as well, because, well... why not? I spread some blackberry preserves on the first layer than added a few healthy dollops of the icing for good measure. Plopped the second layer on top, and proceeded to drizzle and/or drown the chai cake with gooey goodness.  On went the blackberries, and the cake was complete!

I brought this cake with me to a small birthday gathering where it was quite a hit. Success!

I use slabs of parchment paper to keep my
display plate nice while I decorate.

Ohhhh yeaaaaah

And my mom made me pink bean-avocado
enchiladas for my birthday! Very tasty.