This spiced chai cake features a buttery rich crumb peppered with flecks of real chai tea. After baking, this festive treat is soaked in chai tea syrup, then smothered with a spiced maple buttercream.
One whiff of chai tea always takes me right to the Christmas season, but that doesn't stop me from starting to drink it in mid-August each year. In addition to a steaming cup of tea, I love any and all chai desserts so I thought I would try my hand at a spiced chai cake.
Now, where most chai cake recipes get their flavor profile from a mixture of warming spices, I didn't want to miss out on incorporating the malty sweetness of the black tea itself (it is that other important ingredient in chai tea after all!) so I decided to work actual chai tea into my recipe.
First we use the tea bags to make a quick chai syrup, then I use the contents of one tea bag for the cake batter, and another for folding into the maple buttercream frosting, giving this dessert a ton of flavor and lots of festive flecking throughout.
Since we are doing sweetness x3 in this chai tea cake recipe - in the cake batter itself, then soaked in chai syrup, and finally in the maple icing - I keep the sweetness relatively low in each individual component.
The cake itself has a savory, almost buttered-corn like taste that is the perfect canvas for the sweet chai spices and floral tea flavors. It gives plenty of room for the chai syrup to soak in and lend its sweetness, while a thin layer of spiced mascarpone icing offers just the right amount of decadence on top.
ingredients for spiced chai cake
ingredient notes & swaps
- As far as chai tea options go, I love this Stash Double Spice Chai for its strong flavor profile. I use it to make my Vanilla Chai Old Fashioned as well. You could use any chai tea you like best though, or play around variations like vanilla chai or masala chai. Decaf chai tea is fine too.
- Make sure to bring your eggs, butter, and sour cream to room temperature before baking. This allows them to blend more easily than if they were cold.
- The oat milk did not make it into my ingredients pic (oh noooo guess I'll have to make this cake again sooner than later 🙃) so please take note that ½ cup of oat milk is an important addition as written on the recipe card below.
- Mascarpone is an Italian dairy product that is similar to cream cheese, but it has a sweeter flavor and smoother, more rich texture. It is far less tangy than standard cream cheese, so I love it for this chai spiced cake recipe as it really allows the chai flavors to shine.
spiced chai cake recipe
This spiced chai cake features a buttery rich crumb peppered with flecks of real chai tea. After baking, this festive treat is soaked in chai tea syrup, then smothered with a spiced maple buttercream.
- Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 16 servings 1x
Ingredients
For the Syrup:
- ¾ cup water
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- 2 chai tea bags
For the Cake:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 ½ cups sour cream, at room temperature
- ½ cup oat milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
For the Chai Buttercream Frosting:
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup mascarpone
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Whole star anise pods and cinnamon sticks, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350℉. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan sheet pan with parchment paper, leaving some overhang around the edges to help you lift the cake out later.
- First we'll make the chai syrup. Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan, then add the ¾ cup brown sugar and stir over medium heat until it dissolves. Turn off the heat and add the 2 tea bags. Let steep for about 15 minutes, then remove the tea bags and set them aside. We'll be using them again!
- Now on to the cake batter. Start by creaming 2 of the sticks of butter and the remaining ½ cup brown sugar together for about 2 minutes until fluffy. I usually do this in a large stainless steel bowl with a hand mixer (a hand-me-down from my late great aunt!) but you could also use a stand mixer.
- Add the eggs, sour cream, oat milk, vanilla, and the contents of 1 chai tea bag - just cut that sucker open and scrape the flecks out!
- Beat until smooth and creamy.
- Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Gently mix until the cake batter just comes together. It will be thick and sticky so that it can take plenty of the chai syrup we're going to soak it in after baking.
- Pour your spiced chai cake batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, then remove from the heat. I know it looks a little anemic at this point but that's okay, because our chai syrup bath is going to give it lovely deep color.
- While still in the pan, use a skewer or chopstick (I use a little sandwich pick, also a hand-me-down from my late great aunt) to poke lots of holes all through the cake. It's okay if it looks sloppy, our maple buttercream will hide the mess!
- Use the parchment paper overhang to lift and transfer your chai cake to a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Brush the chai simple syrup from earlier allllllll over the top of the cake. Let the syrup seep in and then drizzle more and brush again. Let the cake cool completely.
- Once the cake is cool, make the frosting. Whip the remaining stick of butter with the mascarpone, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and the contents of the other soaked tea bag (cut it open and scrape out the flecks just like you did for the cake batter!) until light and fluffy.
- Frost your cooked cake as desired.
- Slice into pieces. For me the 9 x 13 pan makes 16 nicely sized portions!
- Garnish as desired and enjoy! I like to put cinnamon sticks and whole star anise, but a dusting of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, or turbinado sugar would look great too.
Notes
- When baking something with a lot of eggs, like this spiced chai cake, I strongly recommend cracking the eggs one at a time into a separate bowl before adding them to the cake batter. This gives you the chance to make sure your eggs are good and check for bits of shell.
- Depending on your oven, you may want to rotate your cake pan about halfway through the bake time. It's not uncommon for ovens to be hotter towards the back or one particular side, so keep an eye on things and adjust as needed to help your cake cook as evenly as possible.
- You're probably only going to use about half of the chai syrup you make for this cake, but definitely hang on to the rest of it as it is lovely when poured over pancakes or waffles, drizzled on thick Greek yogurt, or to dress up some vanilla ice cream.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: desserts
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: cakes
FAQs
Can I make this recipe into a chai layer cake?
Yes! I'd advise baking this chai spice cake in a shallower, wider pan and then cutting out the individual cake layers. For specific details, I'll defer to the experts at King Arthur Baking who offer this excellent guide to creating layer cakes using this method. Note you will have to adjust your bake time from the original recipe!
dig in!
Enjoy & let me know what you think 🌙 💛
