Classic Chai Bundt Cake is a light moist delicately spiced cake with cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. Add a drizzle of the Chai spiced white chocolate topping and it is the perfect dessert.
This versatile dessert can serve as an elegant dessert for the holidays or as a wonderful treat with brunch.
Behold the beauty of simplicity in the subtle flavoring of Chai spices in a bundt cake.
The texture is light and moist and the flavor not overbearing. The drizzle of white chocolate spiced with Chai adds a classical appearance to this Chai Bundt Cake.
The elegance of the bundt style cake is a wonderful addition to your holiday dessert menu. In addition, the simple beauty of this cake is pairs perfectly with a cup of coffee or tea and friendship.
Food history and the bundt pan
We love to include a little history in our blog because it gives more meaning to the food we eat and it is also interesting as well.
The history of the bundt pan is rather fun. It started in the 1950s when a couple of Jewish ladies approached a man named H David Dahlquist whom so happened to be the founder of Nordic ware.
The ladies wanted a pan made that would be close to the German “kugelhopf” pan. Thus, the bundt pan was created and gained great popularity when it won a contest (2nd place) in the 60’s.
The bundt pan is popular, even today, for how it bakes the cake so evenly due to more contact of the batter with the design of the bundt pan.
Bundt pans are also popular because they are already decorative just from the design of the pan itself! How handy is that!
Do you love food history? Here is a short but informative article on the history of the Bundt cakes: https://belmarbakery.com/a-short-history-of-the-bundt-cake/
Shhh…we have a secret to tell!
Making this Classic Chai Bundt Cake is really pretty simple. We did do something a bit different from other cakes, in using the melted white chocolate.
Tanya noticed that in the Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake recipe, it was especially moist where the white chocolate pieces had melted into the batter.
So we decided to add melted white chocolate to this recipe, and see what happened.
By combining the butter with the white chocolate and brown sugar, it helped to make the cake very soft, delicate, and moist. And, the white chocolate has no flavor that will affect the flavors on this cake.
It came out better than we imagined! A cake so moist and light!
The making of our Classic Chai Bundt Cake
Ok, let’s get going.
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Grease your bundt pan, and flour very well. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar, butter, and melted white chocolate, for about a minute.
Now, the eggs are added one at a time. Make sure to scrape your bowl between each addition. After the eggs are all mixed in, add in the milk, Chai tea concentrate, and vanilla. Mix on medium for about a minute.
Things get a little weird here with our not so classic looking chai bundt cake batter
Don’t panic!!!
At this point, the batter is going to looks all sorts of weird and clumpy! And that is ok. We didn’t know what to think, actually, and came close to tossing it out and then just start over.
We did not, in fact, toss the whole mess out the window.
Trust us, it is the addition of the cold milk (our Chai was cold, too) to the still warm white chocolate and butter mixture. Once you add the dry ingredients, then the batter looks amazing.
The sifting and mixing of it all
In a separate bowl, sift the flour together with the baking powder and 1/2 half of the spice mixture.
Why sift, you may ask? Glad you asked!
Sifting is meant to aerate flour as well as combine it with other dry ingredients before it is incorporated into a dough or batter.
This allows the ingredients to be more uniformly combined, while dry, especially if there are any spices. Which in turn allows for the ingredients to blend together better, when added to the wet ingredients.
Add half of the flour mixture to the wet, and mix on medium for about a minute. Add the other half, and mix on medium for another 2 minutes. Make sure to scrape the bowl down often.
Spoon the batter as evenly as possible into your prepared Bundt pan. If there is too much batter on one side, the cake will not bake evenly.
No one wants their bundt cake to resemble the hunchback of Notre Dame!
After smoothing out the batter, gently tap the pan on your work surface a couple of times to help settle the batter.
Place the cake pan into the oven at 350 F and bake for 55 to 60 minutes. Oven times may vary. We checked at 55 minutes and found it wasn’t quite done. It was done at 61 minutes for us, so just check and keep an eye on it.
Important lessons on the cooling process
Place onto a cooling rack to cool. And yes, it does need to cool completely before trying to remove from the pan.
We used a silicone mold for this cake, and to be honest, Tanya tried to get it out too soon, and yep, we ended up making it all over again!
Important tip: Make sure to spray the pan either with a baking spray that has flour in it, or, when you oil the pan, make sure that all of the surfaces the cake will touch are well floured.
Bundt pan tips and dealing with the stubborn cake
After the cake has cooled, gently invert it onto the cooling rack. If you use a metal bundt pan, just let it sit for a minute or so. Gravity will do the work for you if the pan was oiled and well floured.
If the cake is being stubborn, as they can be, flip the pan and cake back over and run a very thin knife around all of the edges. Place your hand on top of the cake and gently invert again. It should come right out.
If you used a silicone pan, gently pulling on the edges of the pan all the way around should pop the cake out. Once the cake is out, place it onto your chosen serving platter.
The Frosting on our classic chai bundt cake
To make the frosting, place the white chocolate chips and vegetable oil into a small saucepan over medium low heat. Stir often, until the mixture is smooth.
At this point, add in the other half of the spice mixture, and stir well. Make sure to combine the spices well with the chocolate. Remove from the heat, and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes.
Decorating time
Now comes the fun part.
You can spoon the frosting mixture into a piping bag, or, pour it into a measuring cup with a pour spout on it. Then pipe or pour over the cake, making sure the frosting runs down both sides.
We did a light dusting of cinnamon for contrast but you can choose however you want to decorate your cake. Even a nice dusting of powdered sugar does add a classic touch.
Place the cake in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, if desired, so that the frosting sets.
Wrap up and conclusion
We love the simple yet elegant look of this chai bundt cake. The moist light texture is wonderful and the flavor is a mellow blend of holiday spices.
This is a fairly easy recipe to make but be careful on the cooling process and especially on trying to get the cake out of the bundt pan!!
Looking for other dessert ideas? Try our Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake, Reduced Sugar Cranberry Curd Tart, Baked Apple Pie with Stevia, or Christmas Wreath Bread!
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas!!
We thank you for your support and hope you drop us a line!
Love
The Morgan Sisters
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