Fragrant chai spice infuses this deeply flavored vegan chocolate spice cake recipe that is easy to make as cupcakes or a layer cake - delicious with or without frosting! And link for gingerbread men sprinkles is below!
Chocolate Spice Cake Recipe
This chai chocolate spice cake recipe is fragrant and full of flavor, as well as being light and chocolatey. This vegan and plant-based recipe is versatile, perfect for 12 cupcakes, or a 2-layer cake or even a sheet cake. And the frosting includes chai tea! All made with a homemade chai spice mix I provide within the recipe.
When to Serve Chai Chocolate Spice Cake?
Serve this cake to people who love spicy food and deep chocolate flavors. So it's perfect for birthdays, holidays, dinner parties, and just for yourself.
All About Chai Spices and Chai Tea
Chai tea is a flavorful spicy tea popular in India. Technically the term "chai" means tea in Hindi and many other Indian languages. And actually the term chai is translated to mean just plain tea in many other countries, including Russia.
It's only in the USA that the term chai means a spice form of tea only. To the rest of the world, when we say "I'll have a chai tea", they hear "I'll have a tea tea". Haha.
Regardless of what you call it, it's delicious, fragrant and creamy. Here is how to make your own chai spice.
How to Mix Homemade Chai Spices
Basically mix up ground spices of cardamom, which is the strongest flavor in the mix, as well as ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, and fennel seeds. That is a traditional chai mix.
You can customize it by adding more cinnamon to sweeten it, more ginger to add more spark, and even allspice, nutmeg and cloves for a more pumpkin spice or gingerbread spice flavor in your cake.
Actually I have a homemade holiday spice recipe blog post here in which I provide recipes to make all three of these mixes: Chai, pumpkin pie spice and gingerbread. You might want to check it out if you are interested in mixing your own spices.
When to Serve Chocolate Spice Cake?
This recipe is perfect for your holiday dessert line up, full of fall and holiday spices.
You can frost it with the chai frosting recipe I provided to match the spicy power of the dessert, or you can calm it down with a sweet vanilla frosting. You can also just dust the cake or cupcakes with cacao powder for an elegant tea cake taste.
How to Make a Chocolate Spice Cake
This recipe is like any traditional vegan chocolate cupcake recipe or dairy-free chocolate cake recipe, with the simple addition of chai spices.
So the cake is basically flour, cocoa powder, and apple sauce among other common ingredients.
The chai spice is the most unusual ingredient in the recipe.
You can buy chai spice or you can just mix five common spices together to make your own chai spice mix to use in this recipe. It's also useful to buy chai teabags to infuse the milk for both cake and the frosting.
To make the chocolate spice cake, simply mix up the batter, spoon into a cupcake tin or cake pans, bake, cook and frost. I also made a vanilla chai tea frosting that is almost like a glaze but you can use your favorite.
How to Make a Mild Spice Cake
Chai spice is strong in flavor. If you want to calm it down, leave off the cardamom spice and replace with 1 extra teaspoon of ginger. Also, reduce the amount of spice in general.
Are you interested in more recipes that use spices? For instance, ginger and turmeric are great detoxers, as well as an antiseptics. Try these recipes that depend on spices:
Ginger Juice
Golden Milk
Ginger Shots
Cinnamon cranberry
Gingerbread cookies
Chocolate Spice Cake
Spice Khao Soi Thai soup
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Chocolate Spice Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Cake recipe
- 2 cups oat flour 1 ½ cup all purpose flour or GF baking flour
- 1 cup organic cane sugar
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder or cacao powder
- 1 teaspoon Chai spice mix (See my recipe below)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup dairy-free milk (infused with Chai tea from tea bags)
- ¼ cup apple sauce
- 2 tablespoon light virgin olive oil
Homemade Chai Spice Mix
- 2 teaspoon cardamom
- 5 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoon ginger
- 1 teaspoon fennel
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Vegan Vanilla Chai Icing (spreadable, not pipable)
- 3 cups organic powdered sugar
- ½ cup butter I use vegan butter, sticks that are softened
- ½ cup milk
- 2 tablespoon chai tea (Make chai tea using tea bags)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Useful Equipment
Instructions
Prep
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Make chai spice mix.Line a 12-cupcake pan with paper liners. If making a layer cake, grease and dust two 6-inch round pans.
- Warm 1 ½ cup of milk in microwave at 1.5 minutes, add two chai teabags and set aside to infuse the milk for the cake and frosting for 10 minutes.
- Once milk/chai tea is ready, pour 1 cup into a different cup, and add the lemon juice to activate it for the cake. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
Mix the batter
- In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients and sugar.
- In a smaller mixing bowl, combine wet ingredients.
- Add the wet to the dry and blend until smooth.
- Spoon batter into the cupcake cups, filling each ¾ full. Or fill the cake pans.
- Bake in the oven until the cupcakes test clean, about 18-20 minutes. If baking a cake, bake about 30 minutes. Cool pans 15 minutes before removing baked goods.
To make the chai frosting:
- Blend up powdered sugar, softened butter, vanilla, and add in chai-infused milk a tablespoon at a time (a bit more or less) until you achieve the creamy texture you want.
- Blend again until creamy. To keep this frosting from hardening as it cools, I soaked a paper towel in water and covered the bowl completely until I’m ready to frost it.
The Vegan 8
These cupcakes look amazing Dee! I love that you added chai spices to the chocolate flavor, what a fabulous idea! The cupcakes look so healthy and wholesome too, love that you made them with oats!
Debbie
Thank you so much! I love chai flavors!
Ela
I LOVE the look of your festive cupcakes! The recipe sounds very easy and healthy too, that's amazing. And what a great idea to top them with yogurt and sprinkles (which look like mini gingerbread men btw!!!). Beautiful photos, Dee!! 🙂
Debbie
Ela! Thank you !