Chocolate Chilli Chai {dairy free}

My daughter India and I love making chai in the Thermomix with cashew milk -

it's gorgeous! So creamy. (I ♥ cashew milk! Especially vanilla cashew milk...)

Creamy vanilla cashew milk - just add some vanilla bean paste (or the seeds from a vanilla pod) to your cashew milk. Drink it chilled, or heat and froth in the Thermomix to add to cappucinos, hot chocolate, or chai. Make a batch of vanilla cashew milk before you make the chai if you like, so you can drizzle a little into the cups of chai and swirl through to make it look pretty.)

The other day I decided we really needed to add some chocolate and chilli to our chai for a change. It was so good. Although I admit I added a little too much chilli the first time - I didn't mind it, but the kids had to keep adding cashew milk to their cups to tone it down - oops! So the next day I made it again for friends, and used half the chilli - they pronounced it to be just right. I think it's better to not use too much chilli, or you just get a numb mouth and can't appreciate the chocolatey, spicey flavours. :-)

There are so many possible variations when making chai. I started with the Chai Masala Tea recipe in the Thermomix cookbook, 'Fast and Easy Indian Cooking' (yes, I write all over my cookbooks as I tweak, don't you??) adding and substracting spices to taste, as well as grinding up raw cashews and chocolate to make a creamy chocolate milk base. I ended up with a big mess, on a day when I was supposed to be madly cleaning the house, but the results were worth it!

(And I must say here a big THANK YOU to Lucy, who sent me a whole pack of organic New Guinea vanilla beans - so lovely of you, and very much appreciated!)

So here's my recipe, but feel free to change and tweak it to taste - use more or less chilli or cinnamon, maybe some coriander seeds roasted in the Thermomix bowl and ground up with the other spices - there's plenty of ideas in the Indian cookbook recipe, so have a look and tweak to your heart's content. The purpose of a recipe is to give you a starting point - you don't have to stick to it. I never do. Not even my own. ;-)

Enjoy! ♥

Serves 6

A whole nutmeg

1. Make sure your Thermomix bowl is very dry. Turn the speed dial to 7, and drop a whole nutmeg onto the blades through the hole in the lid (quickly popping the MC in place) and let it grind for 30-40 seconds. Remove to a small dish. (The reason you grind the nutmeg separately is because it needs to be added in the last minute as it loses flavour quickly when heated.)

- 1 whole nutmeg

Spices ready to grind

(a bit too much chilli in this batch - I used half a chilli in the second batch)

2. Roughly grind remaining spices in Thermomix bowl on speed 7 for 10 seconds. (You don't want them ground too fine, or else the 'bits' will get through the strainer.)

- 1 cardamom pod
- 2 large or 3 smaller sticks of cinnamon
- 2 whole cloves
- 5 peppercorns
- 1/2 a dried red chilli
- 1 vanilla bean, cut into a few pieces
Set spices aside in a small bowl.

3. Add to Thermomix bowl and grind on speed 8 for 10 seconds:
- 80g raw cashews
- 80g dark, dairy free chocolate, broken in bits (eg. Green & Black's 70% cocoa, or a 65% cocoa chocolate if you like it a little milder)

4. Add water and blend for 30 seconds on speed 9:
- 1200g water

5. Carefully push strainer basket down into the chocolate milk in the bowl, and add the ground spices (except the nutmeg), tea, fresh ginger and sweetener. Cook for 10 minutes at 80C on speed 4.
- ground spices (except nutmeg)
- 5 teabags of organic black tea (or 5 tsp loose tea leaves)
- 3 or 4 thin slices of fresh ginger
- 40g Rapadura (or other natural sweetener, to taste)

[Note: you may get a bit of foam coming out of the hole in the lid, but it shouldn't be enough to be a problem. Just take the MC off and it'll be fine.]

6. Add nutmeg through hole in lid and cook for 1 minute at 80C on speed 4:
- a couple of pinches of ground nutmeg, to taste

7. Remove basket from bowl (carefully - can get messy!), squeezing tea bags against sides with spatula.

8. Pour the chai through a strainer into a jug. (Not a fine mesh strainer, as it'll take too long and drive you crazy!)

9. Pour into cups and add a little hot, frothed cashew milk and swirl through (optional), then grate over a little more chocolate for decoration.