you're making mealtime meaningful.
On chilly autumn days, sunlit filled windowsills beckon you to wrap yourself in a knitted sweater and warm up with a chai latte. This drink, rich with a blend of spices and smoothed with warm milk, has become one of fall’s emblematic flavors. Here your favorite cafe drink gets dippable with this Chai Latte Dip. The flavors of autumn are at your fingertips with this easy recipe that comes together in a matter of minutes.
Chai, the spice mix, in and of itself, is an ancient drink. As the story goes chai, spanning back thousands of years into India’s culinary repertoire, was used as an Ayurvedic medical drink. Ratios of these digestive spices varying from region to region, but they were used quick readily to cure people from all walks of life. England’s power over India and the tea market changed the way both the British and Indians consumed tea. In an attempt to nudge out the reign of Chinese-grown tea, Britain forced Indian-produced tea to flood England and India’s markets. The once-medicinal mixture blended with British black tea and became the drink of India’s 20th-century working class. Sweetened with sugar and tamed with a bit of milk, chai gave workers a caffeinated, sugary-spiced energy of sorts.
Fast forward a few decades, and the chai latte that we know today is a little bit sweeter and a little bit milkier than its predecessor. If you order your modern-day latte, it’s easy to assume it’s gonna be brewed not with spices, but with chai-flavored syrup. Here, we’re taking the best of chai and putting it into a dip. A homemade chai spice blend gives you that great aromatic flavor of true chai. A base of cream cheese and whipped cream give you a luscious and smooth texture.
To start, we make the spice blend. A blend of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice, cloves, and black pepper gets mixed together.
Go about whipping the heavy cream, you’ll want firm peaks for the heavy cream. Once whipped, keep it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
In another bowl, you’ll get to whipping the cream cheese. Make sure you frequently scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, you don’t want any lumps.
Next, add the vanilla, powdered sugar, and a teaspoon of the chai spice mix. Trust me, a teaspoon goes a long way, these spices are powerful and pack a punch of flavor. But if you want a strong punch you can opt to add two teaspoons.
Finally, you fold the whipped cream into the spiced cream cheese mixture, and tada — you’re done!
You can serve it anyway you like! To feed a crowd a dish with a lot of surface area gives everyone a chance to dig in.
Eaten with apples or cookies or layered in a lush-like dessert, this dip covers all your quick dessert needs.
Chai Latte Dip
Yield(s): Serves 4 to 6
5m prep time
Allergens: Milk
you're making mealtime meaningful.
For the Homemade Chai Spice Mix:
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
For the Chai Latte Dip:
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 to 2 teaspoons Homemade Chai Spice Mix
- Apples, sliced (for dipping)
To make the Homemade Chai Spice Mix:
- Mix the cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, allspice, and black pepper. Store in an airtight container until you need to use it.
To make the Chai Latte Dip:
- In a large bowl whip heavy cream until stiff peaks form, set aside.
- In a large bowl, whip cream cheese until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to prevent any lumps.
- Add in vanilla extract. Gradually add the powdered sugar followed by the chai spice mix.
- Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Serve with apples and cookies and enjoy.
Recipe adapted from Takes Two Tapas