mini vanilla cinnamon cake with chai spice cream cheese frosting

Last night Adam and I went to dinner at Xi'an Famous Foods on Manhattan ave. It was amazing. We've ordered from there before, but it was way too spicy. This time the same dish (N1 - lamb and noodles) was perfect. It's probably our fault, they recommend eating-in as opposed to take-out. We talked about going to a movie, I'd talked about maybe going out, but when we decided to stay home and watch three episodes of the Good Wife, I thought the occasion called for a cake. It was Friday night, after all. Also, I am practicing for the vanilla / vanilla cake I am making for Chiara when a gaggle of us go see her play, Five Times in One Night on Valentine's Day.

Mini Vanilla Cinnamon Cake with Chai Spice Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 c butter, softened

1 c self-rising flour

1/2 c caster sugar*

1 egg + 1 egg white

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon in 1/4 c hot milk

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Spray a 6" cake pan with Baker's Joy. Heat milk in a small saucepan over low heat, add cinnamon and whisk. Cream the butter and sugar in a medium bowl with a hand-mixer. Add an egg, an egg white, and the vanilla, beat after each addition. Fold the flour and cinnamon milk into the wet batter. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick (I use a metal skewer) comes out covered with crumbs of cake, and not liquid.

Let cool for ten minutes, then invert onto a metal rack to cool completely.

Chai Spice Cream Cheese Frosting

I like to make these cookies. But I always have leftover chai spice. I keep it because you never know. Last night, for my impromptu mini-cake I took the remainder of a cream cheese container (roughly 3 oz), the left-over chai spice, 3 tbsp powdered sugar & 1/2 tsp vanilla and whipped em together. I don't like icing that is too sweet and this was great for that. If I make this icing in the future, I will grind the spices first, the way I do with the sugar for the batter (see below).

**to make caster sugar, grind granulated sugar in a food processor until it forms a powder. I used the grinder attachment on the Nutribullet and it worked great.