Chai Tea Bread

For this round of the recipe swap I was assigned the blog Peace, Love, and French Fries and I got to choose the recipe to make. Tough choice since she has so many good recipes! Despite the fact that the Seattle area has recently had some of the hottest days of the summer, I still want to bake! We were having guests over and I didn’t have any freshly baked treats in the house. I have a reputation to maintain and felt compelled to bake something. I knew I had a container of chai tea concentrate in the cupboard, so I knew this was exactly what I wanted to bake. Besides, baking with spices makes the house smell so good and what could be more inviting?

There are many varieties of chai tea out on the market, plus it isn’t too hard to make your own. This recipe uses liquid chai tea concentrate. I used the Oregon Chai brand, which I like a lot. This recipe doesn’t use very much of the concentrate so I will be making a couple of other recipes with what I have left. The Oregon Chai website has some great looking recipes, so I will be exploring their site for ideas.

I was a little unsure of this bread in that the method for making the batter is a little different than how you traditionally make quick breads. Also, once I added the milk and chai concentrate, the mixture looked quite curdled! But it worked out just fine so I shouldn’t have worried. The texture of the bread is perfect and the flavors are just divine! This was probably the best quick bread I have ever had, and I can’t wait to make it again. (I did, in fact, make it a second time to take to work. It’s that great!)

Chai Tea Bread

½ cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/2 cup chai tea concentrate

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 cups flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup powdered sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

1-1/2 tablespoons chai concentrate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 9” x 5” loaf pan with cooking spray. 

In a large mixer bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, 1/2 cup chai tea concentrate, milk, 1 tablespoon vanilla, and spices at low speed, scraping down sides if necessary.  The mixture may look curdled; don’t worry.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the chai mixture, stir until just moistened.

Pour batter into prepared pan.  Bake 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes in pan before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Make the icing: in a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 1/2 tablespoon chai tea concentrate, stirring until combined and of a spreadable consistency. (Add some milk if you need to thin the icing.) Drizzle the icing over the cooled bread.  Cool completely before slicing. 

Recipe from Peace, Love, and French Fries