Chai cake with blueberries and chai caramel buttercream

I made this cake for our friend Jon's birthday. We celebrated at KatiWok, the pan-Asian street food diner I designed, where we always drink delicious homemade chai tea. When I was decorating the restaurant, creating a huge collage of Asian pop culture imagery all over the restaurant walls, I got completely addicted to the chai made to the secret recipe of Mem, their fantastic sous-chef (who also makes the most incredible bhajees, samosas and dumplings).  For this cake, I tried to replicate her flavours by grinding my own spice blend - I used cardamons, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice. I'm sure there are hundreds of ways of making chai, but I'm pleased to say this turned out as close to Mem's as I could've hoped for. For the frosting, I made a caramel with chai tea bags and added it to a buttercream, then topped it all with fresh blueberries. Happy birthday Jon!

Ingredients

1 tsp cardamon seeds

1 tsp cloves

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp allspice

1 lb butter, softened

1 lb caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

8 eggs

1 lb self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

For the buttercream

6 oz caster sugar

6 tbsp water

2 chai tea bags

8 fl oz double cream

8 oz butter

8 oz icing sugar

To decorate

Fresh blueberries

Edible gold dust

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line the base and sides of a two 9 inch round springform cake tins.
2. Begin by making your chai spices blend. Place the cardamom seeds, cloves, cinnamon, ginge, nutmeg and allspice in a grinder and pulse until a fine powder.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until pale and fluffy.
4. Measure out the flour and set aside.
5. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, followed by a large spoonful of flour between each egg.  Beat well after each addition.
6. Sift in the remaining flour, baking powder and chai spice mix, and beat to combine smoothly.
7. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and bake for 40 mins or until a cake tester comes out clean.
8. Cool for 10 minutes in the tins, then remove and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
9. Meanwhile, make a chai caramel sauce: place the sugar, water and the contents of two chai tea bags in a pan. Slowly bring to the boil and watch carefully as the sugar bubbles up. Remove from the heat and add the cream. Stir to combine then set aside to cool.
10. Make a buttercream by beating butter and sifted icing sugar until stiff.
11. Once cool, add the chai caramel cream a little at a time, stirring to combine.
12. Use half the buttercream to sandwich the cakes together, and the other half to spread on top of the cake with a palette knife.
13. Decorate with fresh blueberries and sprinkle with edible gold dust.