How to make chai-spiced cupcakes?

The cupcake is a combination of –

Chai-spiced mix – This mix is a delicate blend of 4 kitchen spices that give the cupcakes its distinct chai flavour. The 4 flavours in the mix are cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and ginger. The spices are ground together to get the perfect spice mix for these cupcakes. The spice mix will be used in the cake batter, buttercream frosting and to garnish the cupcake, sprinkle on the buttercream once piped.
Chai Infused Cupcakes – The tender and moist vanilla cupcakes are infused with chai by adding Chai infused milk to their batter. This infused milk gives the actual chai flavour to the cupcakes in combination with chai spice mix. The chai infused milk is what gives the batter its beautiful caramel colour.
Chai spiced Buttercream – The perfect topping to a cupcake, the chai spiced buttercream compliments the cake well. Giving it the little extra sweetness and flavour. The cupcake can be made without the buttercream as a muffin too. The cake itself is delicious.

Why Infused milk?

Infusing the milk with natural aromatics is a great way of getting amazing flavours into the cupcake. Infusing the milk with the tea is what gives the distinct flavour of tea to the cupcakes.

Tips for buttercream!

The buttercream calls for unsalted butter and it is better to use that, since salted butter will make the frosting very salty. Also, use good quality butter as regular local dairy butter contain excess water and that may lead to a runny buttercream that is difficult to pipe. (Out of experience, sadly).
The second major ingredient is Icing sugar. This is something you would not want to substitute with powdered sugar made at home, since that leads to a grainy buttercream with sugar crystals. If you would like to still make it at home, make sure to powder the sugar verryy fine and add some cornstarch to it! (1 tsp for 100g).
Beat the butter well before adding icing sugar. The butter should be fluffy.

Like this recipe? Try my other cupcake recipes-

Chai-Spiced Cupcakes

Recipe by thecrumbstoriesCourse: Cupcakes

Servings

Cupcakes

Prep time

minutes

Baking Time

Minutes

Total time

hours

Tender Chai-Spiced cupcakes topped with delicious spiced buttercream. They taste chai, so you can have your chai and eat it too!

Ingredients

Chai Infused Milk
½ cup Whole Milk
2 tsp Chai Tea leaves
Chai Spice Mix
½ tsp Ground Cloves
½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
½ Tsp Ground Cardamom
½ tsp Ginger Powder
For the Cupcakes
125 g All Purpose Flour
125 g Unsalted Butter, softened
2 large eggs
3 tbsp Chai Infused Milk
125 g Caster Sugar/ Superfine Sugar
¼ tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Chai spice mix
Chai-Spiced Buttercream Frosting (Optional)
150 g Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
335 g Icing Sugar
¼ tsp Chai Spice mix
2 tbsp Chai Infused Milk

Directions

Chai Infused Milk
Place the milk and tea leaves in a small pan over medium heat.
Bring the milk almost to a boil and then reduce the heat to low and simmer gently for about 2 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and leave it to cool completely.
Once cooled, strain and use. This can also be kept in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
For the Cupcakes
Preaheat the oven to 170C/375F.
Beat the softened butter and sugar till fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat well.
Sift the dry ingredients and add them in batches to the butter and egg mixture. Mix well.
Add in the Chai infused milk and spice mix to the mixture and beat until incorporated well.
Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners or brush the pan with some butter.
Fill the paper cases two-thirds full with the mixture.
Bake in the preheated oven for 22-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool.
Buttercream frosting
Beat the room temperature butter with an electric mixer for 3-4 minutes or until pale.
Sift the icing Sugar into a bowl and add it to the butter in two batches, beating well in between each.
Pour in the Infused milk and add the spice mix, beating until well incorporated.
Now pipe it over the cooled cakes.

Notes

The buttercream frosting is completely optional. The caked taste great with out it too!
The butter should be at room temperature (soft and not melted) for it to beat fluffy.
Fill the cupcake liners only about 2/3 full to avoid overflowing.

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