I made my first pot of chai today, and it turned out deliciously. I don’t have black cardamom or fennel seeds, so my mix for chai at the moment is: sugar, fresh ginger, ground cinnamon, whole cloves, whole green cardamom pods, ground coriander, black peppercorns, and a mix of black teas. (At the moment, I have some black tea I bought at the Indian stores in Lavapiés, called PG Tips, which is made by the same conglomerate as Lipton, and is a basic black tea, as well as some Lipton Earl Grey and some Darjeeling; I primarily used the first one.) I still think it’s fascinating that black pepper makes chai taste good instead of just okay.

I’d give a recipe for chai, only I never measure when I’m making it, and I think if I tried to I would fuck it up. So experiment! That’s what I do. Do be aware that you don’t want to over-spice it; it can end up way too strong.

I also made cupcakes yesterday, which was thrilling. I’d been wanting to make them for weeks, now, and this week I found a muffin tin for cheap at a dollar store. So of course I bought it (€2.40!), and brought it home. It only has holes for six muffins/cupcakes, so I think I’ll go and buy a second one so I can make 12 cupcakes at a time. It’s a nearly-worthless tin, but if it lasts me for a few baking rounds, that’s good enough for me.

I wanted to make cupcakes to bring with me to Emily’s, since she was having a few of us over, and I figured it would be nice to have something sweet. So I looked and found a recipe for banana cupcakes, since I had a super-ripe banana. And made it, changing a lot of things to the point where I feel comfortable posting this recipe as my own. And then I made a basic cream cheese frosting, which made it worthwhile. The cupcakes are eggless, but certainly not vegan the way I made them. If you want them to be vegan, use soy milk instead of milk, and make a different frosting.

Banana-Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F (170/180° Celsius). Take out the butter and cream cheese and allow to come to room temperature. Ideally, you’ll do this an hour or more before.
2. Warm the milk slightly in the microwave (just so it’s not cold), and then combine cider and milk in a bowl and set aside. The milk will curdle over the next few minutes.
3. Mash the banana well.
4. Stir together the dry ingredients, including the spices. (That means flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda; also cayenne and coriander.)
5. Add the liquids and stir until smooth.
6. Ladle or pour mixture into a muffin tin lined with cupcake papers. If not using cupcake papers, butter the molds before using.
7. Bake for around 22 minutes. Check to be sure they’re done by using a wooden toothpick. Alternatively, you can make this as a cake; cook in a square pan for around 35 minutes.
8. Let cool, and make the icing.
9. For the icing, stir the butter and cream cheese together. Once mixed, mix further with a whisk or (better) a hand blender.
10. Add the powdered sugar a medium amount at a time, mixing it in after each addition. Taste occasionally. You can get by without adding fully two cups.
11. Spread frosting onto cupcakes. Eat.

I only made six cupcakes, and then had to run to Emily’s; the rest I baked as a small cake. I think the cake was possibly better — more moist — but the cupcakes were pretty damn good.