C&C - Chai and Cookies

I haven’t been to India….yet….but India has found a way to me. Chai is Indian spiced milk tea and it is the most amazing milk tea made of black tea and different spices like cardamom, anis, cloves…sugar and milk. There are many ways of preparing Chai but after trying for some time I got the spice combination I like the most. And on a chocolate-craving day Chai Hot Chocolate is a perfect rescue.

And what goes better with Chai if not cookies. I made cookies called “dreams” in Swedish. And as I was into spices already I also added my precious cacao-beans I bought on a farmers market in Mexico. And “dreams” turned into “dreams with wonderful touch of true chocolate taste”…so I called them “true dreams”.

These cookies are made with baker's ammonia and that is the only way to get the "dream" texture that makes them so distinguishable from all other cookies. 

I will be enjoying my Cookies and Chai Hot Chocolate while checking all wonderful recipes of this month’s “Waiter there’s something in my…” round-up.


Chai Hot Chocolate
serves 2
5 dl milk
3 cinnamon sticks (all together15 cm)
1/2 tbs green cardamom pods
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 pinches ground ginger (2 ml)
2 pinches crashed anise seeds (2 ml)
1 pinch ground cloves (1 ml)
1 tbs Darjeeling black tea
70g dark chocolate

In a saucepan mix milk and spices and heat to a simmer. Let it simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it steep for another 15 minutes. Heat it up to the boiling point and add tea, let steep for 5 minutes.
Chop chocolate finely, take the tea out of the milk and add chocolate to the milk, whisk until smooth. Return to the stove and heat until desired temperature.

True Dream Cookies
100g butter
2,5 dl sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 dl corn oil
1 tsp baker's ammonia
4,5 dl four
1,5 dl cacao nibs

Preheat oven to 150˚C. Mix butter, sugar and vanilla sugar for 2-3 minutes. Add the oil gradually. Mix together flour, baking soda and cacao nibs and add it to the butter mixture. When everything is mixed make about 50 balls (3 cm in diameter), flatten them a bit and place them on a parchment paper. Bake cookies for 20 minutes and when they are done place them on a wire rack until they get cold.