Chai Pumpkin Pie

Spicy Pie.

I'm not much of a pie maker but for Thanksgiving I make an exception! I wanted "spice up" the normal pumpkin pie recipe I use and turned to my good old friend Wight Tea Co for their Chai! You're probably thinking, oh gosh here she goes again about that Chai. Seriously, IT IS THE BEST. My friend Brittany, who is the boss lady behind Wight Tea Co got the blend just right! 

Chai tea milk, yum. 

First thing I did was find out how to use regular milk instead of sweetened condensed or evaporated. Regular milk is key so that you can heat it (not boil) and place the leaves in the milk to brew. 

Ingredients 

• 2 eggs slightly beaten

• 2 cups pumpkin (maybe a bit more) 

• 2 tablespoons Wight Tea Co Chai

• 1/4 cup milk (heat and brew tea then drain) 

• 3/4 cup brown sugar

• 1 tablespoon flour

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• pinch of salt

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

I used a Jiffy pie crust mix. It's super simple, just add water and roll out! Next time I think Ill get two boxes so that I can make a pretty dough braid around the edge!

Stir together eggs, pumpkin and milk. Make sure that after you brew the tea in the milk, you let it cool before adding it to the mix. 

Add in flour, salt, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla and cloves. Mix. 

Pour batter into the pie shell! If you want the crust to brown better you can cover it in egg wash. 

Bake at 375 for about an hour. depending on your oven it may take less time than this so check often! You can also try baking at 425 for 15 minutes then reducing the oven to 350 and baking for about 30 minutes. 

Yay! 

Do you have a special ingredient you include in your pumpkin pie like this chai? Share with me!

Mini Matcha Donuts

Mini. 

I recently fell in love with Matcha and although I've tried it several times and wanted to try something new. I have tried many tea infused sweets and have been itching to try all these delicious sounding matcha recipes! After much research, I decided on matcha donuts!

At first, I was really disappointed that I couldn't find a regular donut pan but then I found a mini donut pan at Marshalls! 

You might be thinking, mini donuts? Why would you want MINI donuts? The answer is obvious, mini donuts means I can eat MORE donuts! 

How freaking cute are these??!

Recipe

• 3/4 cup cake flour. If you don't have cake flour you can fill a measuring cup with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch then the rest with regular flour. Make sure to sift it together.

• 2 tablespoons brown sugar

• 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 tablespoon Pumeli Matcha

• 1 large beaten egg

• 1/3 cup milk

• 2 tablespoons salted melted butter

• 1 tablespoon honey

For the icing

• 1/4 cup chocolate chips

• Sprinkles (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Mix all the dry ingredients together

3. Add in all of the wet ingredients

4. Fill icing bag with the batter and fill your molds 3/4 of the way through

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes or when a toothpick inserted in the donut comes out clean

6. Let the donuts cool and then dip into the melted chocolate and top with sprinkles if desired. Tip: if you don't have a double boiler you can just stack pots to melt the chocolate or you can even fill a bowl with boiling water and place another bowl on top and mix chocolate chips until they are melted!

These were delicious! I highly suggest trying them! If you do try them, let me know how you like them!

Chai Tea Shortbread Cookies

Tea is for more than drinking.

Until I get my hands on some matcha I'm going to keep baking cupcakes and cookies with the tea in my collection because the result is oh so good! 

This chai tea from Wight Tea Co has to be one of the best chai teas I've ever had so I thought to myself, this will probably be delicious in cookies!

Artsy Flour Shot

Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter salted
• ⅔ cup brown sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon chai tea crushed up
• 1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
• 1 tablespoon sea salt (optional) 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. This all depends on your oven. Mine is really hot so I have it on 350 but if your oven isn't as strong you could stand to put it up to 375
2. Mix the butter and sugar then add in the vanilla.
3. Separably combine flour and chai tea. Add the dry ingredients to the butter, sugar and vanilla.  
4. Form the dough into a log shape to fit the size you want your cookies to be. Wrap with saran wrap and freeze for 20-40 min.
5. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and cut your cookies to desired thickness. Bake for 11 minutes.

OPTIONAL

1. Melt chocolate chips with a double boiler or a bowl over a pan of boiling water. 
2. Dip cooled cookies in melted chocolate and sprinkle with sea salt

German Apple Pancake

My older sister found a video of a "German Apple pancake" a while back and decided she wanted that to be her sweet. In case you're lost I've mentioned in past posts that for Iranian New Year (Norouz) I gave everyone in my family a ticket for a sweet of their choice, some are still cashing in :) 

The recipe is from the site Tip Hero and is accompanied by a really simple and helpful recipe! 

Check out the recipe here.

Tips: This recipe was fairly simple but I would suggest cutting your slices a bit thinner, the outcome will be less chunky. 

Have you tried any good recipes recently ? Share you favorites with me! 

Ceylon Leaf Cookies

Bakinspiration.

Ok, ok.. I know that's not a word but I retrieved a print from Lily & Val! Valerie is an incredible artist and hand draws these images with chalk on a chalk board then digitizes them. I was so excited to get this in the mail. 

Today was really gloomy and this print got here just in time. Life is what you bake it is probably going to be my new life motto!

I decided to take a basic earl grey cookie recipe and use ceylon tea instead.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons grated orange zest
• 2 cups flour
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons crushed ceylon leaves (or tea of your choice)

1. Zest the orange! 
2. Crush the tea leaves!
3. Cream butter with sugar and add orange zest
4. Mix dry ingredients together
5. Gradually add dry ingredients to butter mixture
6. Cut the dough in half and roll into logs on parchment paper 
7. Wrap parchment paper around logs and place in freezer until the logs are firm
8. Cut the logs into slices and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper
9. Bake for 13 -15 minutes or until edges are golden brown

Review: Delicious and buttery. The orange zest is a subtle but great addition to the taste. 

Regrets: I didn't crush the tea leaves as much as I should have