Vegan Chai Mulberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
This light and buttery, not too sweet, cake is spiced with all the flavors of chai tea, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, plus some actual brewed chai. It’s topped with a sweet and tangy, spiced vegan cream cheese frosting. But what really makes this cake is the addition of freshly foraged mulberries and a simple mulberry syrup dripping down the sides. Fresh mulberries really bring the taste of summer to this mulberry cake, plus the syrup drizzle adds that sweet tartness, plus a beautiful red color. Serve for the perfect summer dessert
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Foraging for Mulberries
Ever since I was a small child, I’ve foraged for mulberries. In the US, mulberries are most commonly found in urban or settled areas, since aside from one species of the tree most mulberries are not native to the Americas and were taken from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and planted by former mulberry lovers. Because of that, mulberry trees can often be found at the corner of old houses, peppering the edges of a road, or hidden at the edge of a parking lot but rarely in the woods. Every June to July, you’ll find the ground around it stained with the dark red juices of fallen and squished mulberries. Because of that, looking down can actually be an easy way to find mulberry trees, when the berries in the branches might be obscured by the boughs of neighboring trees, the mulberry-stained concrete can tell you where to start your search. Once you spot one, you’ll be surprised how many mulberry trees are planted in your neighborhood that you had never noticed before- hidden, juicy little berries, ripe for picking. Every year I harvest mulberries- sometimes just a few for snacking, other years I harvest cups and cups and make small batches of jam. This year I went for a mid-level harvest, and treated myself to some excellent baked goods like this chai mulberry cake. Harvesting mulberries is basically a guarantee for stained hands, but they’ll wash clean before long. Ripe mulberries easily burst, so I’ve developed a technique for picking that minimizes that risk. I use one hand to hold a large container up, underneath a branch. I use my other hand to lightly tap the berries on a branch- something almost between brushing and tickling- so the ripe berries fall and are caught in my container and the unripe berries stay on the tree.
How to Identify Mulberries
Disclaimer- use caution when foraging wild edibles, and always be certain of your identification. While I assume responsibility for the accuracy of the information provided on this site, I can’t responsible for the accuracy of your information. Consult multiple websites, books and local experts, and when it doubt, do without.
There are more than 10 different species of mulberry, and they all look and taste a little different- if you’ve found several different trees, I really recommend doing a tasting and finding the berries you like the most. If you’ve spotted the berries on the ground, check out the leaves. Mulberry leaves are single and lobed, sort of heart-shaped, and light green. Some mulberry trees can grow up to 80 feet high, although smaller trees are more common. The berries start out white or greenish, and each berry is technically many little berries. Once ripe, there are three colors of mulberry, the black mulberry (pictured here), the red mulberry (which is native to North America, and is typically only seen on the East Coast), and the white mulberry (which is a pale lavender when ripe). The vary in size, with some mulberries being almost round, and others being fairly elongated. Mulberries are not edible when green, so make sure your berries fall easily from the branch.
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How to Make Mulberry Cake
Plan ahead when making this cake, as you’ll want to let it cool fully before icing. That should take a couple hours, but I often like to bake a cake like this the night before and let it cool overnight, that way I’m not impatiently checking it’s coolness every 10 minutes to see if I can decorate yet. The cake is a fairly basic recipe. Get the oven good and hot, and make sure you have a greased 9-inch bundt pan handy. Whisk the wet and dry ingredients for the cake separately, making sure not to stir more than needed, and transfer to your pan and into the oven. Don’t wait too long to get it in the oven once whisked, as the baking powder starts working as soon as you make the batter. After about an hour, the cake is cooked and can begin to cool.
We iced our cake with half a batch of this cream cheese frosting, to which we added a little cinnamon and cardamom, to really boost the chai spices in the cake. Once that frosting is nice and fluffy, move on to the mulberries. This cake uses two cups of berries, one cup to make a mulberry drizzle, and a second cup to cover the frosted cake with fresh berries. To make the drizzle, combine mulberries, sugar, and lemon juice and cook it down. After the mulberries have broken down and the sugar melted, strain through a mesh strainer and return it to a pot, just to thicken a little bit. Let the syrup cool, so it doesn’t melt the frosting.
Finally, let’s get the cake assembled. Cover the top of the bundt cake with a thick layer of frosting, not being too fussy and letting the frosting make organic looking lines. Place the fresh, raw mulberries around the frosting, pressing very gently so they adhere to the frosting but don’t burst. Side note- I used chopsticks to delicately place my mulberries. Had I not been photographing the cake, I might have just stuck them on with my fingers and accepted the possible messiness. Finally, drizzle the mulberry syrup over the cake. It will not be very thick, and as the cake sits it will absorb more of the syrup from the bottom. Eat immediately, or refrigerate if you have more self control.
Vegan Chai Mulberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 2 chai tea bags
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 6 tbsp. cornstarch
- 1 tbsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. cardamom
- ½ tsp. dried ginger
- ¼ tsp. dried ground cloves
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 2 sticks unsalted vegan butter, melted
- 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup plant-based milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- ½ batch vegan cream cheese frosting
- ½ tsp. cinnamon
- ½ tsp. cardamom
- 2 cups of fresh mulberries, divided
- 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
- Juice of ½ lemon
Instructions
- Bring a pot of water to a boil, and pour ¾ of a cup of water over your chai teabags. Let the tea steep for 5 minutes, and then remove the teabags. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350°F (175°F) and grease a 9-inch bundt cake tin.
- Combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and salt in a large mixing bowl, and whisk. In a second bowl, combine the brewed chai, vegan butter, apple sauce, brown sugar, plant-based milk, and vanilla extract and mix well. Add the wet ingredient to the dry ingredients, and mix to combine. Pour the batter in the greased bundt pan, and bake for about 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and let cool for 10 minutes before inverting on a cooling rack. Let cool completely.
- While you wait for your cake to cool, make up your cream cheese frosting (a half-batch of the original recipe), and whisk in the cinnamon and cardamom.
- Prepare the mulberry syrup by placing one cup of mulberries in a small saucepan, and saving the remaining cup. Add the sugar and lemon juice, and heat on medium-high, stirring. Mash the mulberries up, and once the mulberries are soft, after cooking for a few minutes, remove the mixture from the heat. Strain through a mesh metal strainer, reserving the liquid and discarding the solids. Return to the heat for a minute or two, until the syrup looks slightly thicker. Let cool in the fridge.
- Once the cake is completely cooled, decorate with a thick layer of frosting across the top. Add the uncooked mulberries on top of the frosting, and finish my drizzling the mulberry syrup over the top of the cake.
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