Chocolate-Covered Chai-Tea Bars

Chai tea consists of a blend of flavors coming from pepper, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger. Some strongly brewed tea is the base flavor for these thin cookie bars.

The batter consists of a mix of almond flour with a little all-purpose, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, orange zest, and honey. The brewed tea is added to melted butter and then all folded into the dough…which takes some time! In the end you have a beautiful smooth batter but you aren’t quite sure you are going to get there.

This is scraped into a 8×8 pan and popped into the oven for about 30 min. The cake is allowed to cool on a rack after removing from the pan. We are given the option of topping with melted milk chocolate or not…but just as Dorie said…I always go for the chocolate. 😂

After the chocolate is set, you can cut the bars into 16 squares.

So, these had mixed reviews. The most common statement was there was a layering of how the flavors hit you, but that the chocolate was very understated and the orange prominent. No one got much of a chai feeling…for those that had had chai tea before.

I feel like these fall into the “take it or leave it”category. Most people ate them, but wouldn’t necessarily want me to make them again.

Fun, but not worthy of a repeat for us.

Devil’s Thumbprints

This recipe we are told came about from a mistake…too much chocolate added to the batter. I for one don’t think that would be a problem haha. 😂

The “too much chocolate” actually made the cookies a dark, rich devil’s food, and quite fudgy. They reminded me of brownies.

The batter is made ahead of time and needs to be chilled for at least two hours…I left it overnight so I was ready to go the next morning. The dough is rolled in sanding sugar, and then using a cork or thumb…or whatever you can find to make an ident, the center is pressed down. They are cooked for about 10 min, and then the center is re-pressed where it might have puffed slightly during baking.

The centers can be filled with jam or chocolate. The suggestions given were raspberry jam and ruby chocolate, which I had never used before so it seemed like a perfect excuse to try it out…although it took me two stores to find it haha.

For any chocolate lover I think these would be a hit…rich and chocolatey, chewy and also crunchy from the sugar. We all loved both fillings…and no one had tried the ruby chocolate before so that was fun.

We loved these…and based on the reviews and reactions, I think everyone would be really happy if I made them again. As my dad said…”keep that recipe close for future use”. 😍

This one is a keeper!