We’re making a gift! A gift for ourselves and some to share, too. My chai obsession is pretty well-documented at this point. I drink it hot daily– yes, even in the summer. When given complete creative freedom on my next cookbook, it suddenly filled up with so many chai-flavored desserts that even I was embarrassed. (But only mildly). But there’s one thing that didn’t make the book: the jars of chai sugar that get made in my kitchen, stacked on my counter nearest the tea mugs, and sprinkled on almost everything. I thought we’d make a batch together, package it into little jars and give it as part of a gift basket, k? (Remember when we made homemade caramels for gifts last year? And remember when we decided to keep making caramels until our fingers were so sticky we couldn’t use our phones and apple cider caramels were our new obsession? Me, too.)
Ingredients for Chai Sugar Jars:
You’ll need loose-leaf tea for this, or you can cut open English black breakfast tea bags. The higher quality tea you have, the better this will be (obvs). The powdery stuff is, well, powdery, and I don’t love it for this, but it will definitely work. Black tea leaves + sugar + spices = CHAI TEA TIME SUGAR HAPPINESS. I wanna say that the minimum spices you should use for this are: cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger. Cloves and allspice are nice if you have ’em, but fine if ya don’t. I went to camp ’the more spice the better’ when I was a kid, so I bump mine up probably too high. What to sprinkle this on? How abouts fried sweet things (donuts comin’ your way soon), the foam of a tea latte, sugar cookie dough balls, your tongue, anythingelseyoulike.
Package these up for friends as homemade edible gifts, or save this in jars in your own pantry. You’ll find plenty of ways to use it!
