breathe and bake.

I'm going to go ahead and say that Chai Lattes are my favorite coffee shop drink, besides black coffee.

I buy Bigelow's Vanilla Chai tea bags, do half a glass of vanilla light soymilk, the other half is water, put 1 (or 2 if I'm feeling risque) tea bag in it, and heat it.

Yes, I heat my liquid in the microwave. I am convincing myself it's bad for the liquid.............. convenience conquers conservation.

So I've wanted to incorporate Chai into some sort of dessert recipe for a while. This morning, my class ended early.......way early...so I needed to do something with myself. So I baked.

Unfortunately, I rationalize being bored as a good excuse to bake. The most unfortunate part about this....is I eat what I bake. Usually just one, but... but still.

1/3 pack oregon chai mix

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp vanilla

1/3 cup canola oil (of course i substituted half of that with unsweetened apple sauce..maybe more than half)

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 cup water

2 chai tea bags (i used vanilla chai)

boiled water, steeped tea bags. while tea bags are soaking, mix dry together. make a well. pour one cup of tea in dry mixture, along with the other wet ingredients.

i just sprayed some muffin tins with olive oil spray (all i had was the olive oil kind)

i mixed together two cups of confectionary sugar , 3 tbsp milk, the other 1/2 of the oregon chai mixture, and like..3 spoonfulls of shortening. of course you'll be able to tell by the mixture if you need to add more of anything.

i filled the tins 2/3 the way, put a dollop of the confectionary sugar mixture in it, then topped it off with a bit more mixture just to cover the dollop.

bake at 350 for like..20 minutes.

these are not pretty, they bake hilariously (i said it, that's a word), but they are absolutely freakin scrumptious.

HA ha ! My camera is absent, so an iPhoto will have to do.