Coconut Chai Traybake Food

COCONUT CHAI TRAYBAKE

Steps:

• Grease a 20 x 30cm baking tin with a little oil, and line the base and sides with baking parchment. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Measure the coconut milk and oil into a jug. Crack in the eggs, add the vanilla and whisk with a fork to combine.
• In a large bowl, mix the sugar, flour, coconut, spices and a pinch of salt. Squeeze any lumps of sugar through your fingers, shaking the bowl a few times so they come to the surface. Pour in the wet ingredients and use a large whisk to mix to a smooth batter. Pour into the tin, scraping every drop of the mixture out of the bowl with a spatula.
• Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 25 mins or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. If there is any wet mixture clinging to it, bake for a further 5 mins, then check again. Leave to cool for 15 mins in the tin, then transfer to a wire rack and drizzle over the ginger syrup.
• To make the icing, mix the coconut milk with the icing sugar until smooth. Drizzle the icing over the cake in squiggles, then scatter with the chopped ginger, pistachios and coconut flakes, if using. Eat warm or cold. Will keep for 3 days in an airtight container.

HOMEMADE COCONUT CHAI TEA LATTE

Steps:

• Lightly crush the peppercorns, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon, and put in a medium saucepan. Add the ginger, if using. Add 6 cups cold water to the saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat and add the tea bags. Let them steep for 5 minutes. Remove the tea bags, and let steep another 10 minutes.
• Put the milks and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to simmer. Strain the tea mixture into the milk mixture and heat through for 1 minute. Whisk the mixture until frothy. Pour the tea into 4 mugs and garnish with cinnamon sticks.

COCONUT CHAI

Steps:

• In a large pot bring 2 quarts of water to a boil over high heat.
• While the water is heating, take the cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods and cloves and roughly grind or chop them. Use a coffee grinder designated for spices for a couple of pulses.
• Add the spices to the boiling water, along with the peppercorns and simmer for 10 minutes.
• In the meantime pour the coconut milk, coconut sugar and vanilla bean and seeds into a small saucepan simmering over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has melted. Do not let the mixture boil. Remove the vanilla bean pod.
• After ten minutes remove the water from heat and add the tea. Let sit for 4-8 minutes (depending on how strong you like your tea) and strain out the tea into a pitcher. Add in the coconut milk mixture and serve.
• TIPS: for a stronger chai, grind the spices finer and for a mild chai leave the spices whole. To extract the beans from a vanilla pod, take a sharp paring knife and run it down the center of the pod to open up the bean. Scrape the bean with the knife and add the beans to the coconut milk. If you can't have caffeine then substitute a rooibus tea for the black tea.