Karak Chai

The recipe below makes 2 cups of karak chai using evaporated milk, but any milk will do. I don’t use evaporated milk all the time, but sometimes I like to treat myself. Normally I just use semi skimmed milk. This recipe can be made SW friendly, make sure you measure the amount of milk used as part of your healthy extra A choice and use sweetener instead of sugar (or syn the sugar used accordingly).

My top tips to a good cup of karak chai is to always use good quality loose black tea (I am lucky my sister always supplies me with a huge batch from India, so I haven’t ever had to buy the tea myself, yet!); and secondly, make sure you keep stirring the tea whilst cooking. I know lots of people don’t, but I always stir.

If you don’t have loose tea, use a couple of tea bags instead. We like to have Yorkshire Gold tea bags.

Adjust the amount of loose tea depending on how strong you want your chai. Do note that as the tea is brewing the colour will get darker so take that into account when adding your loose tea. Add less to begin with and if you think that once it has boiled a few times it is still not strong, then add more tea.

You could also make karak coffee this way with evaporated milk, replacing the tea with coffee granules obviously!

Karak Chai Ingredients

Karak Chai Ingredients

 

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cup of water
  • 2 tbsp black loose tea
  • 1 small cinnamon stick
  • 2 cloves
  • 5 green cardamoms, lightly crushed
  • 1 tin of evaporated milk
  • sugar to taste

Method

Bring the water to boil. Add the loose tea, spices and sugar. Let it boil a couple of times before adding the milk.

Once you’ve added the milk, keep stirring the tea on a medium heat, taking care it doesn’t boil over. Make sure you keep a close eye on the tea and lower the tea (or remove the pan from the heat) once it start to boil to the top of the pan.

Do that a few times (around 5 times is enough) and strain the tea into cups.

Karak Chai

Karak Chai

 

Cardamom Loaf

A simple, tasty treat that will go perfectly with a cup of chai. This is a very easy to make bake, my 11 year old daughter made the one pictured!

Ingredients

  • 200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 200 granulated sugar
  • 10 cardamom seeds, peeled and crushed
  • 3 eggs
  • 200g plain flour
  • 1tsp bicarbonate soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
Cardamom Loaf

Cardamom Loaf

Method

Pre heat oven to 170C.

Grease and flour a loaf tin and set aside till needed.

Mix the butter, sugar and cardamom well until it is light and creamy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Sift the flour, bicarbonate soda and salt together and add it to the batter carefully and mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Lastly add the vanilla extract and mix it in.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for around 55 minutes or longer if needed.