The idea for this has been rolling around in my brain for weeks. After meeting the folks of Hanuman Chai at a local market, I decided that the heavenly scented ground chai needed to be incorporated into my baking.

I had been high altitude tweaking a recipe called Pumpkin Cinn-a-zag Bread and knew that it would be a great vehicle for the chai spices. I added a few of my signature adjustments and came up with this recipe.

Chai Spice Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Frosting adapted from The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes by Kris Holechek
Bread
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 1 TBS whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 TBS plus 1 tsp Hanuman Winter Karha Chai Spice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup plus 3 TBS vegan sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup plus 2 TBS almond milk
Cream Cheese Frosting
4 ounces soy cream cheese, room temperature
2 TBS margarine, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a pan with cavities for four mini loaves. In a large bowl, sift together flours, baking soda, chai spice, and salt. Stir in sugar. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, oil, apple sauce, and milk. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.
Pour the batter evenly between three of the four mini loaf pan cavities. Add a few spoonfuls of water to the empty cavity. Bake for 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Let loaves cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 45 minutes. Run a knife around the edge to loosen and turn bread out of the pan to finish cooling on the rack.
For Frosting: cream together cream cheese, margarine, and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer on medium speed. Slowly add powdered sugar. Put in a plastic zip bag and cut a corner off the bag to pipe a design onto the breads. You can also slather the frosting over the top of each bread with a spatula. Cover and store bread in the fridge. If unfrosted, bread can be stored at room temperature. Makes 3 mini loaves.

Until next time, happy baking!