Monday, April 20, 2009

Cake Slice: Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Cream

This month, the Cake Slice Bakers whipped up Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Cream. (Doesn't that just sound wonderful? Honey. Ginger. Cream.)

This is the seventh cake we've baked from the book "Sky High:Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes" by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne. We're baking from this book for a year and after that, it's on to another cookbook.

This was a spice cake, but not your mama's spice cake, I dare say. Unless your mama is from India, where chai tea is popular. (On a side note, I had an Indian roommate once upon a time and she faithfully made chai tea every morning, heating spices, tea, and milk in a pan. Our house always smelled so goooood!)

Cardomom is a key player in chai, but a little cardomom goes a long way for me. So I added more cinnamon and less cardomom than called for in the recipe. I also added some fresh ground nutmeg and cloves.

And how was it? It smelled lovely and tasted delicious. I thought it was a tad dry, but that might have been my fault. I might have left the cake layers out too long to cool.



As you can see, mine was for a birthday. I was low on time so resorted to using sprinkles. Yeah, sprinkles!! (That's a chunk of fresh ginger there on the side.)


As usual, with a crowd present, it's difficult to get a good photo of the interior of the cake (What do you mean, you want to eat cake right now? You can't wait a half hour until I get the perfect shot of a single slice of cake? Sheesh, so inconsiderate.) . This shot was as good as it got.


Everyone seemed to really enjoy the cake.


The icing was delicious. I've never used honey in icing before and I liked the subtle flavor it gave. I made some modifications to the icing so I could ice the cake in the traditional way. I added powdered sugar until it was thick enough to ice the sides, and added a little salt to counteract the extra sweetness. I halved the honey. I added more ginger but should have left it alone. The flavor of the fresh ginger in the icing developed as time went on.

All in all, it was a great cake and once again, I'm impressed with the variety of icings in this book. They've all been fantastic.

You can find the recipe ----> here.

OK, see you next month!

23 comments:

Jin Hooi said...

wow.. looks so good !! I loved the cake itself but the cream was a tad too sweet for me .

NKP said...

Looks wonderful! I love spiced cake, especially cardamom. My birthday is in September, by the way. :)

Anonymous said...

I hope your mother had a great birthday. Chai cake sounds delicious and so does the honey ginger cream. Your cake looks fabulous.

Jo said...

Wow, you really did a great job on your cake. It's gorgeous and I'm sure your mum was thrilled as can be.

Katie said...

I love how you decorated the cake - I bet your mum was thrilled. This was one of my favourite cakes too.

Steph said...

Your cake looks gorgeous! Haha.. I know what you mean about the pictures. Sometimes I make people angry because I won't let them touch it until I get the perfect shot.

Teanna said...

WOW you really never cease to amaze me with your decorating skills! Hahah I do the same thing at a party... I'm like, "Step back everyone, you are in my light!" haha This was a fantastic cake!

Unknown said...

Great job! My layers were a bit dry, too. I didn't care because I'd eat anything with that frosting on it! :)

Looks lovely!

symphonious sweets said...

I love the photo of the mostly eaten demolished cake! A good sign that it was as tasty as it sounds!

grace said...

i love chai lattes. i love cake. i have no doubt this would be a hit with me. no doubt at all.
hope your ma enjoyed her birthday!

Sihan said...

That cake looks gorgeous!!! i'm impressed by the array of icings available in the book too actually.

Engineer Baker said...

Beautiful! Sounds like the perfect birthday cake, especially with the addition of sprinkles :)

vibi said...

Absolutely beautiful choice of colors, Jacque! I love yellow, orange, and hot pink together... something really luminous about it, almost psychedellic!

Very, very well done!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely gorgeous! Great job.

Elyse said...

You did such a beautiful job with your cake. Happy bday to your mom!! That frosting sounds just divine, and the interior looks heavenly, too! I hear you: it's hard to get an artistic snapshot when there are hungry people surrounding the cake with forks in hand!

Monica H said...

Your cake is so pretty. I happen to like the sprinkles :-)

I thought mine was a tad dry too...and a little crumbly, but overall good!

Lulu the Baker said...

That's funny about the frosting, but true. Even the cakes I haven't loved have had amazing frosting! Lovely cake!

Caroline said...

What a lovely cake to have for your Mom's birthday. I hope your Mom enjoyed her special day.

The Food Librarian said...

Whoo hoo! This is awesome. What a wonderful decorating job too!

Sihan said...

i just posted mine. I do have to agree with you that this cake was somewhat spectacular! will be making this again in future!

TeaLady said...

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that sliced pic. It shows exactly how delicious that cake was. Nothing wrong with other pics either. Cake is very pretty. Great job.

Mermaid Sews said...

Great cake, it looks so good. I hear you on the taking photos during the party, I find it a little awkward.

Anonymous said...

фото малолетки в постели http://free-3x.com/ секси школьницы порно free-3x.com/ онлайн порно лесбиянки школьние [url=http://free-3x.com/]free-3x.com[/url]