Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Cream

Ah, chai...

It's taken quite the limelight in the beverage/tea arena in the past decade or so. It's become a mainstay must for any cafe. While chai is a great coffee alternative for people like me who don't drink coffee, it's become a tiresome, predictable choice arguably to the point of boredom. Sure, its reliably there for you but who gets excited over chai anymore? But chai CAKE! This is an entirely different matter. This warrants a little perk of the posture, a little clearing of the throat. Excuse me? Chai cake? It's like you taught the old dog new tricks! I don't know about you but I had never heard of such a thing. Chai had reclaimed center stage for me when I saw this cake recipe. But topped with honey ginger cream cheese frosting? Well, that just... well.... er... takes the cake. Seriously, this is one killer cake.

Others seem to agree. The recipe suggests the use of Tazo Chai, but I distinctly remembered having an aversion to their chai (it's too something, clove-ridden?) so I went with the Celestial Seasonings brand and was very happy with it. The only other thing I would tweak just barely next time is to lessen the sugar by a 1/4 cup in the cake batter. The frosting is plenty sweet already.

I've been poring over gigicakes.net lately. This is where I got the recipe so I'll send you right over there if you're interested in making it. She picks absolutely the most delectable looking recipes and magically whirls then into beautiful masterpieces. 

Perfect Party Cake

Oh, I'm not being immodest. Perfect Party Cake is the name of one of Dorie Greenspan's celebration cakes in her book Baking: from My Home to Yours. I made it for a good friend's birthday party. While I loved how the cake batter turned out, I wouldn't exactly call it perfect... at least not this time around. I will most definitely attempt it again, but do a few things differently.

Well, first I'll tell you what was great. The cake itself was moist and had a wonderful hint of lemon from the zest, and did not 'dome' in the oven. The cakes came out pretty much flat-topped straight out of the pan so no piece of cake went wasted. It's definitely a great go-to cake batter recipe. Also, instead of the blackberry jam it called for I used blueberry instead as you can probably infer from the photo.

What wasn't so great was that the meringue buttercream completely hardened. I expected this to happen somewhat as I put the cake in the fridge for a day, but I had no idea that the buttercream would remain hardened, even after being restored to room temperature -- it sat on the countertop for a good 3 hours.  The frosting was so hard that when I cut the cake, I could feel the knife hit each of the buttercream layers. I was a bit perturbed by this... and then went on to confirm my perturbation when I came to eat it. Actually, it wasn't even the refrigeration that ruined the buttercream texture. It was doomed even before the assembled cake went into the fridge. Let me explain: I froze cake layers.  Upon reading various tips online, I decided to freeze the cake layers because it helps to keep the cake stiff on assembly, but no one online had mentioned that this would completely harden a buttercream frosting! When I took out the layers from the freezer and started frosting away, I saw that the buttercream went on nicely and hardened. It was like water solidifying on a sheet of ice. At the time I thought this was a good thing - a sign that freezing the cake was a great tip that was working. I had no idea that the frosting would stay this way no matter how long it sat out before serving.

I'll give this cake another go but I will either switch up the frosting to somethine other than buttercream or try the buttercream assembly with everything at room temperature. If you're interested in making this, you can find the recipe over at mix, mix... stir, stir!