I absolutely love chai. Ever since college, it is still hands-down my favorite drink to order at coffee shops. (And even lately – I’ve been experimenting with recipes making it at home!) Whether it’s cool and iced in the summer, or warm and cozy in the winter, a good chai is definitely my “comfort” food of the warm drink world!
So when I recently saw some chai cupcake recipes popping up on the blogosphere, I knew I had to give them a try. Then I also found out the theme for this week’s Holiday Recipe Exchange was vanilla, I figured this was the perfect week to try some vanilla chai cupakes – yum!
Unfortunately, to be honest, my first batch was a total disaster, thanks to accidentally adding just 1/2 cup flour instead of 1 1/4 cups flour. Arggggg. But thankfully once I actually followed the recipe, they were extraordinary! The vanilla and chai spice flavors are absolutely delicious, and the cupcakes came out with a perfectly light and fluffy texture. Then once they were iced with this simple but rich cinnamon buttercream…look out. Completely irresistible. :)
So if you love chai, you must give these a try!
Vanilla Chai Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract, store-bought or homemade
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp. chai spice mix (recipe below)
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
Chai Spice Mix Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
- 1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
Buttercream Ingredients:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract, store-bought or homemade
- 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- remainder of the chai spice mix
- 1 Tbsp. cold milk, if needed to thin out the buttercream
Instructions
Cupcake Directions:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare a cupcake pan with liners.
- In a small bowl or plastic bag, combine the chai spice mix ingredients. Set aside.
- Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla and beat in one egg at a time. Stir in 2 teaspoons of the chai spice mix. Fold in the flour and buttermilk alternately and stir until combined, don’t over mix. Mix together the baking soda and vinegar in a separate bowl, then add it to the batter and mix until combined.
- Spoon into prepared cupcake tins until 3/4 full and bake 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Buttercream Directions:
- In a stand mixer, beat the butter until it is creamy. On low, mix in the vanilla and the rest of the chai spice mix. Carefully beat in the powdered sugar about ½ cup at a time. If the buttercream is too thick add 1-2 tbs of cold milk until the desired consistency is reached. Then pipe onto cooled cupcakes with your favorite frosting tip. (I used a 1M Wilton tip.)
Notes
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
Ali’s Tip:
I’ve mentioned this before, but an easy way to get perfectly sized cupcakes (and muffins!) is to scoop the dough into the muffin tins with an ice cream scoop. I like this one.
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Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Beanilla.
YUM! I have made these several, several times over the years! Always a hit! If you dont like chai these are not for you but i love love love them, eating them when they are still a little warm is the best!
Made these today for my Son in Law’s birthday-Very grownup taste and the chai flavor hit the mark perfectly-Will make these again most definitely
I was so excited to try them! I made them tonight and unfortunately about half of my batch did not cook properly even when adding another 10 minutes to the bake-time. My Buttercream was also too runny ): . Next time I’ll add a little more powdered sugar, a little less of the spices, and up the temperature! Other wise these are delicious and if I could just make them properly they’d be even better!
I was excited to try these, I absolutely LOVE chai tea. Honestly, though, I thought they just tasted like carrot cake minus the carrot.. not totally impressed. :(
Maybe your spices were old and lost their flavour.
What do you mean by plain flour? I’m a culinary student very close to graduating specializing in baking there for I’m assuming your meaning All-purpose flour, but for people who don’t know what you classify as “plain” flour you should put that in the recipe and just assume that the person your making the recipe for knows nothing in the kitchen and be more specific than just saying “plain”….. just a suggestion
I just made these and they were delicious!! I wanted to make these with stuff I had around the house, and chai spices were not on that list–so I steeped some chai teabags in warm cream and substituted that for the buttermilk. If you squeeze the teabags when you remove them, you get a lot of the flavor out. The flavor was still probably not as strong, but they turned out very well all the same. Thanks!
lovely looking cupcakes!
Fabulous!! I doubled the recipe, added the seeds from a vanilla bean, and baked it in a bundt pan (about 50 minutes). Then I halved the frosting recipe. Amazing cake, flavorful and delicious. :)
These were incredible! A big hit among friends. I had more than one person tell me they were the best cupcakes they’d ever eaten. What a way to make a baker blush!! :)
Just so you know, I successfully turned this recipe into a vegan and gluten-free cupcake recipe. It was sooo delicious! Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting!