Chai Spice Honey Cake

Honey cake is a traditional Rosh Hashana dessert  It occurred to me a few weeks ago that chai spices would work well in a honey cake. I looked around to see if such a recipe existed but I could not find any. There were honey cake recipes and chai spice cake recipes but no honey chai spice ones. It then occurred to me that I should just make a honey cake and switch the coffee to tea and the traditionally used spices to chai spices (this honey cake was a major influence!) The result is this cake.

3 1/2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon of medium to course sea salt
3 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of ginger
1/2 teaspoon of cardamon
1/2 teaspoon of star anise (I did have to grind this myself in a coffee grinder since I could not find any ground star anise)
1 cup vegetable oil (I used refined coconut oil)
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup of Tazo Chai Spice tea

1. Brew the tea. In order to end up with 1 3/4 cups of tea I used 12 teabags  and 2 cups of hot water and then let it sit for 5 minutes. I also made sure to squeeze out all the extra water form the teabags so that I would get a strong brew. Let it cool.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

3. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.

4. Add the oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla and tea and mix on low until well combined.

5. Pour the batter into 3 8x4 pans lined with parchment paper.

4. Bake for 45 minutes or until the top springs back when you touch it.