Chai Spice Coffee Cake -- CHAI ANOTHER DAY -- #giveaway

(The giveaway is closed.) 

LESLIE: After all my jokes about being People of the Pie, rather than Clan of the Cake, it’s funny that I’ve shared not one but TWO coffee cake recipes in the past few months. (Here’s my Almond Rhubarb Coffee Cake, right in season.) I actually made them two or three weeks apart, which is even funnier.

A writer’s life is turrible hard, turrible hard. Worse, she inflicts it upon her poor, unsuspecting family.

This is another of the recipes I gave to Pepper in Chai Another Day to showcase her chai-inspired baking blend. The recipe for that blend is in the book; you can use it or the substitute listed below. My original is based on a chai-spiced coffee cake recipe I found on line; I changed the spices so I could offer you, dear readers, a all-purpose blend for baking, just as Pepper offers her customers. After the first piece, I decided it needed a glaze—and of course, that had to be spiced, too.

This is a classic Bundt cake with a spiced streusel swirl and topping, but no tea or coffee—so you can pair a slice with either beverage for happy taste buds!

CHAI ANOTHER DAY releases next week, June 11! It's available for pre-order now, of course. Read an excerpt on my website. And leave a comment below, with your email address, for a chance to win a copy!

Glazed Chai Spice Coffee Cake

Streusel:

3 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1–1/2 teaspoons Chai for Baking blend (or 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon each ground ginger, ground cardamom, and ground cloves)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup pecans, lightly toasted, chopped

Cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon Chai for Baking blend (or 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom)
1–1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Glaze: 

1 cup powdered sugar
pinch of salt
3/4 to 1 teaspoon Chai for Baking blend
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour Bundt pan and set aside.

Make the streusel:
In a bowl, mix brown sugar, sugar, spices and flour. Stir in butter until mixture is crumbly. Stir in pecans. Set aside.

Make the cake:
In a bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time. Scrape bowl as needed. Add vanilla extract and combine.

Add sour cream and mix until incorporated. Slowly add flour mixture. Mix until combined.

Pour half the batter into Bundt pan. Add half of streusel and use a knife to swirl into batter.

Pour remaining batter into to pan and top with remaining streusel. Gently press streusel into batter.

Bake 55–65 minutes until top of cake is rich golden brown, and a toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.

Make the glaze: 
While the cake bakes, mix the ingredients for the glaze in a small bowl.

Let the cake cool in pan five minutes before unmolding by turning upside down onto cake plate, tapping with the handle of a knife to loosen. Cool 15–20 minutes before glazing and serving.

This cake freezes beautifully. Wrap well to prevent drying.

Streusel:

Cake:

Glaze:

Coffee? Tea? Cake? Take your pick! Leave a comment below, with your email address, for a chance to win a copy of CHAI ANOTHER DAY! (US addresses only, please. Winner will be chosen Thursday, June 6.)

From the cover of CHAI ANOTHER DAY, Spice Shop Mystery #4 (Seventh St. Books, June 2019): 

 Seattle Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece probes murder while juggling a troubled employee, her mother's house hunt, and a fisherman who's set his hook for her.

As owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece is always on the go. Between conjuring up new spice blends and serving iced spice tea to customers looking to beat the summer heat, she finally takes a break for a massage. But the Zen moment is shattered when she overhears an argument in her friend Aimee's vintage home decor shop that ends in murder. 

Wracked by guilt over her failure to intervene, Pepper investigates, only to discover a web of deadly connections that could ensnare a friend - and Pepper herself.

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries—and the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction. Her first historical short story, "All God's Sparrows," won the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Short Story; read it on her website. A past president of Sisters in Crime and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America, she lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

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