A few weeks ago I made a spur of the moment decision to enter a competition in my local blogging network. The competition requires us to come up with a recipe in one of five categories, featuring Schwartz spices and blog them.
Well, I didn’t read the fine print, and as it turns out, not one of the five categories falls into a strong area for me: I don’t like beans, so don’t eat a lot of Mexican or Brazilian food, I don’t really drink tea, am not a big curry eater and for compact spaces problem of modern living? Well, I use a Thermomix®!
As a result I’ve had to dig deep and learn about a few spices and flavours that are completely new to me. So over the next few weeks, you’ll see a little something different from me.
I’m a huge coffee drinker, and not much into tea at all, but I do have a fair supply of Redbush tea – Rooibos, as we call it – in the cupboard, because it’s good for a number of things, including colic in babies, so the children have it too.
I have had chai in the past, but always bought, so when I looked at some of the spices I was sent, I thought I’d try a spiced tea, using some flavours I do love – cardamom, cinnamon and ginger. I added nutmeg and cloves, two more beautiful spices when used correctly, and hey presto! Beautiful aromatic, sweet chai that even my children enjoyed.
I hope you enjoy our foray into incorporating more spices into our cooking!
*This is not my official entry… that’s coming!
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon cardamom
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon cloves
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- Up to 170g honey (1/2 cup)
- 500g boiling water (2 cups)
- 500g cups milk (2 cups)
- 2 Redbush tea bags (or your favourite)
- Place the cardamom in the Thermomix® bowl reverse speed 8/3 seconds. Remove the shells.
- Add the rest of the spices in the Thermomix® bowl and whizz on speed 10/4 seconds
- Add honey, water and milk, and boil on reverse speed 2/2mins/Varoma
- Add tea bags boil for 5 minutes 100C/reverse speed 2.
- Pour through a sieve or into a caffetier and serve.
- Place the spices in a pot, add the honey, water and milk. Bring to the boil, add the teabags and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Strain and serve.
Hi There, would this keep for a day or two to be warmed up? It is only me who would drink it so would like to have a cup fresh and then store in fridge to be reheated later. 🙂
Hi! I would say the best thing to do is make up the dry ingredients, and use it in a tea strainer or similar? I’d imagine heated/cooled/heated the milk wouldn’t be so great after a while. Hope you enjoy it!
I found this very sweet – 170g of honey. My Husband has a very sweet tooth and said it was too sweet for him. Apart from that the flavours were great! I will adjust for our taste. Thank you.
Thanks for your feedback Beverley – I’ve added ‘up to’ on the blog to help other people out. I’ve actually recently realised that our honey locally bought honey isn’t as sweet as our shop bought honey, so I think you’re probably right!
Thanks for that. I will give it a go…just one more question. If I have ground cardamom rather than whole, should I still use 1tsp?
I haven’t tried it, but I’d venture yes, but adjust as you go. Ground wont have the same strength of flavour as freshly ground, so you might want to add more. Experiment with it though – you might find a way that’s just perfect for you xx