Chai Cake
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Read the full disclosure here.
This tender chai cake is spiced with chai-infused milk, extra spices, and topped off with a spiced cream cheese frosting.
I love cinnamon. Love it. It’s actually my favorite spice to bake with (see all of my recipes with cinnamon!), but I don’t use it a ton in the warmer months, so I really like to hit it hard once fall rolls around!
Many many years ago, my blogger friend Amy posted an amazing chai cake, completely gluten free. She posted it in what was our summer, but because of the funny way the planet works out, it was winter time for her.
I waited patiently the two months until my birthday to bake that cake (completely gluten-full) because a spiced cake was the last thing on my mind in July.
And it was seriously the best birthday present I gave to myself that year.
I decided that this year, it was the perfect gift to, again, give myself, so after we finished up the last crumbs of my snickerdoodle cookie cake, I baked this treasure to have on my actual birthday.
Amy helped me make this cake completely gluten-y (that’s the opposite of gluten free if you didn’t know), so if you’re hoping for a gluten-free version, you can simply use an all-purpose 1:1 sub or buckwheat flour (which is what Amy used in her original recipe).
As per her suggestion, I did swap out almond meal for ground flaxseed simply for texture’s sake, but if you’d like to keep the almond meal, see the notes in the recipe on that one.
For those of you who have never had chai, it is a spicy blend of fennel seed, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger. It is a supremely fragrant black tea, and when combined with hot milk and a little sugar, it becomes one killer cold weather beverage.
I’m not a tea drinker at all, but hand me a cup of chai and I will drink up every last drop!
I also enjoy flavoring desserts with chai. See my baked chai donuts, chai spiced granola, chai streusel muffins, and chai spiced oatmeal cookies.
MAKE CHAI-INFUSED MILK
You’ll start by steeping 2 chai tea bags in some warm milk. It’s important you don’t let the milk boil as you will lose a lot of your moisture to evaporation. I like to pour my milk back into a measuring cup and replace any milk that did evaporate by nature (usually only about a Tablespoon or less).
Once steeped, the bags actually get cut open and the plethora of spices packed into that tea bag are let loose to roam around in the milk to kick the spice up a notch (or three).
This step smells amazing. And guess what?
It only gets better from here, because the cream cheese frosting slathered on top is flavored with the same spices that you’ll find inside the cake.
Really, this goes nowhere but up.
After you’re done spicing up your milk, this cake is in your round pan and ready to bake in a snap.
The recipe is pretty straight forward, but you’re just going to want to remember not to over mix your batter.
You want to keep your crumb nice and soft, so mix your wet team into your dry team gently and stop when everything has just come together.
This cake… Wow. First of all, I’ve considered baking one every single day just so our house can smell as amazing over and over again. Even the kiddos have commented on the aromas floating around the house!
Truly, the smell alone tempts me to throw on my oversized sweater and leggings and grab a pumpkin to carve. Perhaps you’ll feel the same way?
What I love most about this cake is that it isn’t overly sweet by any means. It is the perfect amount of spice without tasting savory, and just enough sweet to go perfectly with a cup of coffee or tea (read: it is completely acceptable to eat this as breakfast).
I would even go so far as to say if you left the cream cheese frosting off of this cake, it would still be a perfect chilly weather snack.
And if you’re wondering, YES, you can absolutely turn this into a two layer cake: double the cake and frosting recipes and you’re all set.
Spice, sugar, creamy cream cheesy frosting, and a steamy cup of tea or coffee (with pumpkin spice coffee creamer, of course). Sounds like something you need in your life ASAP.
More chai treats: chai streusel muffins, chai spiced oatmeal cookies, and baked chai donuts.
Chai Cake
Ingredients
CHAI CAKE
- ¾ cup (180g) milk any kind, any fat content
- 2 chai tea bags
- 1 and ½ cups (180g) all-purpose flour be sure to measure properly
- ¾ cup (112g) ground flaxseed*
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 and ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup (113g) unsalted butter melted and allowed to cool
- ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- ¼ cup (62g) plain yogurt or sour cream any fat content, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
SPICED CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- 4 ounces (112g) full fat cream cheese softened to room temperature
- ¼ cup (57g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 3 cups (360g) powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 to 2 Tablespoons (15-30g) milk or cream any
Instructions
CHAI CAKE
- In a small saucepan, heat milk gently over low heat until steaming, being careful not to bring to a boil. Add chai tea bags and steep for 20 minutes. Allow to cool.
- Once milk is cooled, remove teabags, cut open, and empty contents into spiced milk mixture. I like to re-measure my milk and replace any that evaporated (usually only a Tablespoon or so). Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF (177ºC). Grease and flour (or use homemade cake release) an 8" or 9" round cake pan and set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, ground flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom. Set aside.
- In a medium size bowl, whisk together the melted butter and sugar until no clumps remain. Add the eggs, yogurt, vanilla extract, and cooled milk and whisk again until everything is smooth.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold together, being careful not to overmix the batter, until no flour pockets remain.
- Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes in cake pan. Remove cake from cake pan and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting. You may want to level the cake before frosting, but this is not required.
SPICED CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a medium bowl with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar, spices, and milk and beat until combined. Add more sugar if frosting is too thin, or more milk if it is too thick.
- For more buttercream troubleshooting tips, see my book, The Home Baker's Guide to Basic Buttercream.
- Spread frosting evenly on top of cooled cake. Cake will stay fresh up to 5 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator or 3 days at room temperature. Cake freezes well, up to 3 months. Thaw in refrigerator overnight.
Notes
Nutrition Disclosure
All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.
Lynn! Look at your amazing cake! I am so glad that you got a chance to make it and that you and Matt loved it so much 🙂
Thank you so much for featuring my cake and I am so happy that this cake was part of your birthday celebrations!
I love the swap out of almond meal for flaxseed – I have to try this in some of my recipes soon.
And I need to make this cake again! Even though our weather isn’t quite spice compatible I think I could definitely go for a slice of this on a spring weekend morning 🙂
Enjoy the leftovers (if Matt left you any). Lots of bloggy friend love coming to you!
Leftovers?! Puh! This was way too good! Coworkers loved it too… So thanks again for letting me hijack your beautiful GF idea, haha. Also, I just got my Twitter working for the first time in well over a week, which is why I only just now saw all your sweet tweets! Thank you for ALL of your shoutouts! Looking forward to hijacking more of your yummy recipes soon 🙂
Hi, I love this recipe! I’m wondering what the purpose of the yogurt is. Does it hold a vital purpose, or is it just something to make the cake moist? When I can, I switch out oils and dairy that’s used to moisten baked goods with applesauce to cut down on unnecessary fat. Thank you!
Hi, Claire! You can certainly swap out yogurt if you’d like, but why not just use non-fat yogurt instead? It’s only 1/4 cup. If you choose to use applesauce, I can’t guarantee your results– report back with what you do! Thanks for stopping by.
Well I don’t eat dairy so yogurt isn’t an option at all. I’m vegan, so I use a lot of subs for milk, cream and eggs, all very successfully. However, I’ve noticed that only newer recipes have yogurt as ingredients, not older ones like I usually use, so I’ve never dealt with yogurt in baking before. When I sub out eggs I commonly use applesauce or chia seeds–I find that when I use applesauce, the cake or whatever I’m making is much more moist so I can also cut out oil. I ask again, why is yogurt in this recipe? Is it merely to make the cake moist, or does it serve a bigger purpose? If it’s to moisten then I should be fine cutting out the yogurt, but I still don’t know what it does within the recipe. Thank you!
Yes, while it is in there mostly to add moisture, it also adds a bit of protein since there isn’t a ton of flour in the cake as a whole. Let me know how you make out!
Made this today without the icing (no cream cheese on hand) sooooooo good! Next shopping will pick up some cream cheese and make another with frosting. I say next shopping as this cake won’t last that long, already had two slices!
I’m so glad you liked it, Kelly! This is one of my favorite recipes!
This chai cake is so yummy! I just made it this past weekend and plan on using it for an upcoming baby shower. I just ordered a chai spice blend off of etsy and it was incredible in this cake!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/263470098/medicinal-masala-chai-blend
I’m so glad you liked it, Danica! Thanks for letting me know!
If I wanted to use Almond meal instead of flax seed is it an equal amount?
Hi, Maria– I’m unsure of that substitution, but I might try an equal amount, yes.
I’m allergic to flax seed. What can I use as a substitute? Ground oats maybe?
You could try chia seeds?
Hi, recipe sounds wonderful, your strawberry cake was simply amazing. Can’t wait to try this one. Can I use sour cream instead of yoghurt
Absolutely!
Thanks for replying lynn 🙂 what is the quantity of sour cream I can use ? is it the same 1/4 cup ?
It came out absolutely incredible, I substituted almond meal instead of flax seeds and sour cream instead of yogurt and it tasted absolutely divine. My family loved it 🙂
Thanks for the recipe
Thanks so much, Vidya! I apologize for not getting back to your question about the sub quick enough, but the answer was yes, haha. It sounds like everything worked out!
This recipe is incredible . The cake was so tender and tastes absolutely amazing. I made it without the frosting this time as I didn’t have cream cheese on hand , but I am definitely going to make it next time. Thank you so much for this !
So glad you liked it, Vinita!
Excited to try this recipe! When you steep the teabags in the milk, is the milk still on the stove or take it off after it’s steaming?Thanks!
Turn the heat to low and just be sure it doesn’t start boiling!
this looks so good! do you strain the tea leaves back outnof the milk before adding to the cake batter, or leave them in?
Leave them in.
I made this receipe some time ago and it was so good! But now my little daughter cannot eat gluten and I wanted to make ti glutenfree for her. But Amy’s receipe is gone. Can I just swap the flour with glutenfree flour? did she use almond flour too?
Oh man! Well, first of all, thanks for letting me know that link was broken– second, you can either use a 1:1 gluten free sub or use buckwheat flour, which is what Amy used originally. Let me know how that turns out!
Hi Zoha. I have used Amy’s recipe for a while, and I have it printed off. I actually came here looking for the gluten-y recipe!
Here is Amy’s flour content. Everything else is the same. I think Amy is Australian (or Kiwi?) so I hope the types of flour are the same here and where you are:
60 grams white rice flour
75 grams almond meal
60 grams brown rice flour
60 grams buckwheat flour
(no flaxseed – the above is all the ‘flour’ content)
Amy’s recipe says to bake for 50-60 minutes, but I’d check at 40 to see how it’s going.
It is really lovely and I think has a nice ‘crumb’ with this mixture.
Hope you get to make it and that it turns out perfectly
Annette 🙂
Thanks so much for this, Annette! Amy turned off her site before I was able to grab her ingredients, so I appreciate you 🙂
Thank you so much Annette. I tried with only buckwheat and it was not very good. Flat, dens and with strong after taste. So I am going to try this now! Brown rice flour is a bit difficult to find in Norway, but I think white one is ok. Thank you!!!❤️♥️❤️
Hi 🙂 I have this baking in the oven at the moment 🙂 smells devine. I’m new to flaxseed. I bought the flax seed meal. What is the purposes of the flaxseed.? Thanks
Hi, Eileen– this original recipe was from a totally GF blogger. The flaxseed is there for structure and as a replacement for flour, but it also adds a nice texture and flavor. I hope you loved it!
I tried it! It came out fantastic
Ridiculously good. My mother doesn’t like care to be too sweet, so she thought this was perfect. My son said it’s a new family recipe. Only used about ¼ of the sugar in the frosting, and we thought it was spectacular
Made this for a dinner party and was a big hit! The chai flavour wasn’t as overpowering as I anticipated but was really good! I worried the cake would be a bit dry but also not the case! A nice light flavourful cake 😋
I was so impressed by this cake! I will definitely be making it again, thank you.
Hi,
I don’t see eggs in the ingredients but the recipe mentions it? How many eggs? Am I missing something?
Thank you
Can’t wait to make it!
Hi, Sonal– there are 2 large eggs listed in the ingredients.
Absolutely delicious … not too sweet and so much flavour. The recipe has a lot of steps but it’s all worth it in the end for this fall flavoured cake! Made this for family and friends and they were licking their fingers it was so good !
I’m so glad to hear that, Sam! Thank you!
i made this cake and it was so so good! it was super moist, and the cream cheese frosting was amazing! the flavors where complex but easy to eat. i am not a fan of super sweet foods and this cake was a perfect level or sweetness, if your not a fan of carrot cakes this is a great fall alternative.
Thanks so much for this comment, Isla! 🙂