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Chai Spiced Coffee Cake

Chai Spiced Coffee Cake

This chai spice coffee cake proves that a rainy Tuesday and a box of black tea bags can turn into a genuinely impressive breakfast bake with almost no advance planning. This chai coffee cake recipe layers a warm, cardamom-spiced streusel around a tender, tea-infused crumb, delivering everything a proper chai crumb cake should taste like. Whether served at a Sunday brunch or sliced for a quiet rainy afternoon, this spiced chai coffee cake earns a permanent spot in the regular rotation.
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Prep Time 35 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes
Servings: 9 servings
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 13/4 cup all-purpose flour ((241g))
  • 1 cup sugar ((200g))
  • 11/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup butter ((56g))
  • 2/3 cup sour cream ((166g))
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/3 cup whole milk
  • 2 teabags - black tea
  • 1/3 cup oil ((78mL))
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
Streusel
  • 1/4 cup sugar ((50g))
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour ((103g))
  • 6 tbsp cold butter cubed ((84g))
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 11/2 tsp ground cardamom
  • 11/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/8 tsp black pepper
Glaze
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/2-1 tbsp milk

Equipment

  • 8x8 baking pan
  • Small saucepan
  • Mixing bowls

Method
 

  1. In a small saucepan, add milk and tea bags. Bring to a boil and turn off the heat. Let it cool and squeeze the tea bags to get 1/4 cup (50ml) of milk altogether. Set it aside.
  2. In a medium sized bowl, combine all the streusel ingredients except for the butter. Then add in the butter and use your fingers to mix it in by breaking it. It should be a crumbly texture.
  3. Preheat the oven to 350℉. Line a 8x8 baking pan with parchment and set aside.
  4. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
  5. Add in the butter and oil to the flour mixture. Beat together until it resembles wet sand.
  6. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, tea infused milk, eggs and vanilla until well combined.
  7. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and beat together until it's smooth. If there appear to be lumps, smooth them out with a spatula.
  8. Pour in half the batter into the prepared baking pan. Evenly sprinkle a little more than half of the streusel mixture onto the batter.
  9. Now spoon the leftover batter all over the streusel mixture. Slowly and carefully spread the batter to even it out. This might be a bit difficult because it sticks to the streusel mixture and wants to lift off. Try your best to even it out.
  10. Sprinkle the rest of the streusel on the evened out batter and bake for about 65 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out fairly clean. Just a few crumbs on it.
  11. Take out and let cool completely.
  12. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and milk until thin (honey consistency) and drizzle onto the cake! Enjoy!

Recipe Notes

Black tea: I use standard black tea bags steeped directly into the milk, since it infuses the batter with real flavor instead of relying on spices alone.
Sour cream: I always use full-fat, since it gives the richest, most tender crumb in this batter.
Butter: I keep mine cold for the streusel and softened for the reverse-creaming step in the batter.
Black pepper: I never skip this in the streusel, since it gives the authentic sharp warmth found in real chai tea.
Cardamom: I use this generously, since it carries the signature chai flavor throughout the streusel.