Chai Apple Cake

My lab got out early today so I found myself with an extra hour and a half of free time. What did I do with that time? Shockingly...I baked! I've been thinking lately about making a tea infused cake. Early Grey is the kind I've been hearing about most recently but I was more in the mood for chai. Unfortunately, I had neither of these exciting tea flavors in my tea basket today so I settled on a chai-spiced cake because I always have a healthy supply of those essential Indian cooking elements. I've also been trying to stay away from refined sugar so this cake is sweetened with fruit juice and a little agave nectar. The recipe base is a sugarfree cake recipe that I tweaked to satisfy my cravings and the ingredients I had on hand.

I started by mixing up the spices that I wanted to use. They included 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tsp. ginger, 1 tsp. fennel, and 2 tsp. cardammom. Some clove and black pepper might be a good addition in the future but I thought I'd keep it simple today. I added these to my motar and pestal and ground it until everything was evenly combined. It made more than I needed but it's easy to find another recipe to throw in the rest. The recipe called for apple juice concentrate but I only had unconcentrated-so, I poured about 2 cups into a saucepan with a couple squirts of agave nectar and reduced it until it was about 3/4 cup. This allowed enough for the 1/2 cup in the cake and then I added 1 Tbsp. of butter to the last 1/4 cup as a glaze for the top.

Chai Apple Cake
2 eggs

1/2 c. reduced apple juice and agave or

thawed apple juice concentrate

1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. non-aluminum baking powder

3 tsp. chai spice blend

1/2 tsp. salt

1 McIntosh apple

1/4 c. apple glaze

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a springform pan or other round cake pan. In a bowl, beat eggs and whisk in apple juice concentrate/reduction and vanilla. Slowly whisk in butter. In another bowl combine flour, baking power, spices and salt and mix to evenly combine. Blend dry ingredients into liquids and stir until completely incorporated. Core and thinly slice apple (with our without skin). Pour batter into pan and arrange apple slices in a circular fan-ish pattern (the technical term I'm sure).

Brush apples with a little of the glaze and place in the oven. Bake 35-40 minutes until firm and golden on top. Remove from the oven, poke some holes in the top with a fork and pour the rest of the glaze evenly over the top. Allow to cool completely before removing the springform if using.

I'm not a real cake person. I definitely lean towards pies or cobblers...but I love this cake. It's just sweet enough and it can be made more or less sweet just by altering the amount of agave added. The spice isn't overpowering so you can still taste each of the very few other ingredients. Apple and chai spices are a perfect complement to each other and with a cup of green tea or coffee it's a lovely afternoon tea-type cake (which is how I had it today while writing this post). Gotta love labs that get out early.