As a child, when I would help my mom prepare dinner, I was very often the one who brewed up a pitcher of iced tea.
We drank a lot of tea at our house, and I still get excited about getting a large glass of iced tea?even in the winter.
Hot tea, on the other hand, has never been my favorite. The only kind of hot tea I truly like is chai. If you?ve never had it, chai tea has a lot of nice spices that remind me a lot of pumpkin pie. It?s also great iced with a little bit of milk.
Knowing how much I like it in a glass, I was excited to try a recipe that features this tea in its ingredients list.
This recipe comes from the Oregon Chai company website. You can find it at http://www.oregonchai.com/recipes/desserts/oregon-chai-apple-pie-coffee-cake. I doubled the cinnamon and vanilla in mine. Also, if you don?t want to buy chai concentrate, buy some tea bags of it and brew it very strong for use in this recipe.
Chai Apple Pie Coffee Cake
Ingredients
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup chai tea concentrate
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Topping:
1/2 cup flour
? cup, plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
5 teaspoons butter
2 cups apples, peeled and diced into
half-inch cubes
1/4 cup chai tea concentrate
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and butter and mix until the mixture is crumbly.
Add the tea, egg and vanilla and beat until well-combined.
Spread the mixture into a 8×8-inch greased pan.
For the topping, mix the flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar and three tablespoons of the butter until it?s crumbly.
In a small saucepan, saute the apples in the other two tablespoons of butter for two to three minutes.
Add the tea, cover and let it cook down for another two to three minutes.
Spread the topping over the batter in the pan and then spoon the apple mixture over the top of that and sprinkle with the remaining brown sugar (I used more than two tablespoons to cover it nicely).
Bake for about one hour or until a toothpick comes out with only moist crumbs.
This was actually a recipe I tried on my students first (they?re always willing guinea pigs), and they gave it a big thumbs up. It has great flavor and pairs especially well with a nice cup of tea?hot or cold.
Lindsey Young is the co-owner of The Edge, a Bethel College graduate, and an avid baker. She can be reached at
lindsey@clarionpaper.com
