Makes 16 bars
The warm flavors of chai tea, at once exotic and familiar, are the perfect base for these slim bars. There’s no standard for which spices are included in chai or in what proportions, but you usually look forward to pepper, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and ginger. I mix the chai with melted butter to distribute its linchpin flavors evenly throughout the dough, and I add extra ginger and cinnamon as well as honey, which you’d want with your chai, and orange zest, which is so right with the tea. The bars can be left plain — they’ve got enough flavor to stand happily on their own — or slicked with a little melted milk chocolate. I always go for the chocolate.
WORKING AHEAD
You can wrap the unglazed cake (or bars) in plastic wrap and keep it at room temperature for up to 4 days or freeze it for up to 2 months.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Put both flours, the sugar, ginger, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl and whisk (or stir with a fork) to blend and work out any clumps of almond flour. Stir in the zest. Pour the whites over the dry ingredients and mix them in with a flexible spatula. It takes a minute or so to blend in the whites; when they’re in, you’ll have a thick batter. Stir in the honey and vanilla. Stir the tea into the warm melted butter and pour the butter over the batter. Working patiently (you’ll think there’s too much butter, but there isn’t), stir and fold the batter until the butter is fully incorporated. You’ll have a beautiful, smooth batter with a silky sheen. Scrape it into the pan — it will be a thin layer — and use the spatula to even the top.
Bake for 25 to 27 minutes, until the cake is a deep golden brown and just starting to pull away from the sides of the pan. Poke the top, and it will feel firm and just a bit springy; a tester inserted into the center of the cake will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and wait for 3 minutes, then run a table knife between the cake and the sides of the pan. Invert the cake onto the rack, peel away the paper, invert onto another rack and allow to cool to room temperature.
If you’d like to glaze the bars, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water or in the microwave. However you do it, melt it slowly and carefully — milk chocolate has an unpleasant way of going from smooth to grainy and then burnt; baby it. Pour the chocolate over the top of the cake and spread it evenly over the surface. Slide the glazed cake, on the rack, into the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to set the chocolate.
Cut the cake into 16 bars or, if you’re not using the entire cake, into only as many bars as you need; the rest of the cake will keep better if it’s in a larger piece. If the cake was glazed and refrigerated and the bars are still cold, let them sit until they come to room temperature.
Storing: Kept in a covered container, glazed bars will hold for about 2 days at room temperature; unglazed bars will be good for up to 4 days. Glazed or not, the bars can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months. It’s easiest to put the glazed bars in the freezer uncovered and then wrap them when they’re frozen.