Chai Cake
This moist Chai Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting has fantastic flavor with warm spices and cream cheese frosting.
Servings: 15 servings
Ingredients
For the Spice Cake Layers
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (170g)
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- 1½ cup white sugar (300g)
- ½ cup light brown sugar (packed into measuring cup) (100g)
- 3 cups cake flour ( if you do not have cake flour, see Note below) (342g)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder (8g)
- ½ teaspoons baking soda (3g)
- ½ salt (3g)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon (4g)
- 2 teaspoons cardamom (4g)
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger (2g)
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg (1g)
- ½ teaspoon allspice (1g)
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves (.5g)
- ¼ teaspoon ground pepper (.5g)
- 1 ¼ cups buttermilk (296g)
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil, we use canola oil (64g)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 3 sticks unsalted butter softened (339g total)
- 16 oz cream cheese softened We use two 8 oz packages, full fat.
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 8g
- ½ teaspoon salt 3g
- 6 ½ -7 cups powdered sugar 747g-805g
Instructions
For the Spice Cake Layers
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, grease, flour and add a circle of parchment or waxed paper to three 8x2 inch round pans
- In a medium bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pepper, and spices. Whisk for 30 seconds to blend. Set aside.
- In another bowl, add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugars (white and brown).
- Continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes (a bit longer if using hand mixer) until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Add the room temperature eggs one at a time mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of liquid ingredients). After last addition, mix just until combined.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 23 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes then turn out.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cut the softened butter into slices and add to the bowl of your mixer. Mix on low to medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth.
- Cut the softened cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, mixing at low to medium speed until incorporated. Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar, mixing on low to medium speed until blended.
- If the frosting becomes too soft, just refrigerate a short while to firm it up a bit.This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly (do not microwave) and remix.
Decorating
- Decorate the cake however you like! We assembled the cake, frosting between the layers and then applied a thin "crumb coat" of frosting. At this point, we like to chill it in the freezer for 10 minutes (or longer in the refrigerator) to firm things up a bit before adding the final coat of frosting. After smoothing the final coat with a spatula, we added scrollwork & borders using a piping tip 3.
Storage
- Because of the cream cheese frosting, this cake should be stored in the refrigerator (in an air tight container or under a cake dome). However, for the very best flavor and texture, allow it to sit at room temperature for 2-3 hours before serving. This will allow time for the cake to warm and soften.
Notes
No Cake Flour? Here is a Substitution: If you do not have cake flour, measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour (plain flour in the UK). Remove 6 tablespoons ( 42g) and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch (42g) (cornflour in the UK). Whisk to blend the flour and cornstarch.
Our usual cream cheese frosting contains 2 sticks of butter and 2 blocks of cream cheese. Since we wanted a bit more frosting for decorating, we added an additional stick of butter and a bit more powdered sugar to this recipe.