Chai Tea Bread

Hello and happy August!

I have to apologize again for my lack of posting. Things here have been crazy. Getting used to the new house, each of the kids have had camps and other fun summer activities, and then... we all got sick. All of us. So I've been concentrating on disinfecting the house and trying to get all of the germs out of here!

That being said, the bright spot of this month was my Secret Recipe Club assignment!  This month had me scouring Morsels of Life, and, let me tell you, there is no lack of inspiration there! This blog... let me tell you. It's awesome. And there's something for absolutely everyone. I promise.

I was worried that I was going to have a hard time choosing, and, don't get me wrong - there were plenty of awesome choices - but when I saw a posting for Chai Tea Bread, I knew I had a winner. You know my love of all things chai, so this should come as no surprise at all!

I made a couple of changes, but just to make the recipe dairy-free.

For my base chai flavoring, I steeped a chai tea bag (a special spicy one!) in coconut milk, which I used as my main liquid for the bread.

I did wind up having to heat this a bit (I just transferred it to a small saucepan and put it over low-medium heat for a few minutes) to extract more flavor, but that was no big deal.

While that heated, I mixed together the dry ingredients, including the delicious chia-inspired spices (cardamom, cinnamon and ground cloves).

Then it was a simple matter of mixing up the wet ingredients and barely stirring in the dry ones...

...then transferring it to a loaf pan to bake!  Right before popping the loaf into the oven, you do something magical.  You sprinkle it with shredded coconut.

While the bread bakes, the coconut toasts.

And the results are amazing.

This was a really delicious bread - it had a nice, smooth chai flavor without being too strong (remember, little miss isn't a fan of cardamom - and this bread satisfied my chai-love and still made her happy!).

Everyone's favorite part, though, was that toasted coconut on top.

Absolute perfection.

An InLinkz Link-up

Chai Tea Bread
(only slightly adapted from Morsels of Life)


1/4 cup butter (I used coconut oil)
2 cups flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat and 1 cup white.)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon cardamom, ground
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves, ground
1/2 cup sugar
3/8 cup milk
1/2 cup Chai concentrate or Chai tea
(in place of the milk and chai concentrate, I used 5/8 of a cup of coconut milk, into which I steeped a chai tea bag)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/8 cup shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a loaf pan.
In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, butter, eggs, chai concentrate or tea, milk and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, combining them until just barely moistened.
Pour the prepared batter into the prepared loaf pan.
Sprinkle shredded coconut on top.
Bake until a lovely scent wafts through the kitchen (which it will!), about 50 minutes.