Banana Chai Cake

This year for my birthday I decided to make a more breakfasty-cake so that I could take bring it for my church's breakfast potluck. I ended up dividing the batter between two different baking dishes, one small round one so I could frost the cake pictured below, and a larger round dish that I took to the potluck. They both turned out very well! 

Banana Chai Cake

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2  tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup whole milk or heavy cream
2 tea bags of your favorite chai

3 medium (over-ripe) bananas
1/2 cup (1 stick)  butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

 

Frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 package cream cheese

1 ½ - 2 cups powdered sugar

A dash of each chai spices:

ground cloves
cinnamon
ground ginger
allspice
nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. In a medium mixing bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices together. Set aside.
2. Pour milk into a saucepan and bring to a simmer, add chai tea bags. Remove from heat, cover, and steep for 20-30 minutes, discarding the used chai. Then in a small bowl, mash bananas with chai milk. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl cream together butter and sugar, about 2 minutes. Mix in eggs, one at a time.
4. Stir in the vanilla and banana mixture, until just combined.
5. Add in flour mixture and stir together until fully combined.
6. Grease an 8″x8″ baking dish or multiple dishes of any size. Pour in banana cake mixture.
7. Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean when inserted into the center of the bread.
8. Allow bread to cool in pan for about 20 minutes before removing and allowing bread to cool completely.

9. Once cooled, frost cake as desired.