Simply Delicious Chai-Spiced Stewed Apples

These Chai-spiced stewed apples are the perfect little treat to elevate your breakfast bowls and in turn gives you the much needed kick start to your mornings.

RECIPE INSPIRATION

This recipe is inspired by Radhi Devlukia‘s recipe for stewed apples. As she mentioned, Ayurveda states that stewed apples are perfect to kick start your mornings. They are light so they don’t overload your digestive system. Besides that, the spices used are good for your digestion. These stewed apples produce heat in the body which helps in facilitating healthy digestion.

VERSATILE RECIPE

Yesterday, being a cold and chilly winter morning I had these chai-spiced stewed apples with a good old bowl of oats cooked in milk. Had a perfect start to my Monday. Highly recommend trying out this bowl of goodness.

I stewed the apples with a homemade chai spice but you can use only cinnamon powder or any one spice of your choice.

Some oats topped with chai spiced stewed, flax seeds, golden linseed and fresh mint

This recipe is very versatile. It can be eaten by itself plain and simple or used to make an apple-pie filling, cake, ice-cream, etc. The possibilities are endless.

MORE ABOUT CHAI SPICE

You can make the chai spice in advance and bottle it up for future use.

I’ve used dry roasted whole-spices and then ground the chai spice powder. But you can use different ready spice powders to create your own spice mix.

The spices I used are ginger, cinnamon, peppercorns, cardamom and cloves for the chai spice.

I also used refined sugar to stewed the apples but if you’re looking for low calorie options then replace that with some coconut cane sugar or maybe even some sugar-free.

HEALTH BENEFITS OF STEWED APPLES

I remember my mum giving us a baked apple every time we had a bad stomach. That has a lot of health benefits but stewing them with spices only increases those benefits. Cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, pepper all have antibacterial properties that appear to help prevent digestive issues caused by bacterial infections.

Cinnamon used is known to reduce cholesterol levels and control blood pressure to some extent and also promote weigh loss.

Again ginger and cinnamon, both have beneficial effects on blood sugar levels.

THE RECIPE

Chai-Spiced Stewed Apples

These Chai-spiced stewed apples, filled with the goodness of various spices, are the perfect little treat to elevate your breakfast bowls.

For the chai-spice

½ inch Ginger root (dry roast to remove extra moisture before grinding or use dry ginger)
1½ inch Cinnamon Stick
4 nos Peppercorns
3 nos Cloves
3 nos Cardamom pods
1 tsp Fennel seeds
Nutmeg (small piece)
1 nos Star Anise

Chai-Spiced Stewed Apples

6 nos Apples (Peeled, cored and cut into chunks)
⅔ cup Sugar
¾ cup Water
1 tbsp Chai Spice

For the chai spice masala

Dry roast all the ingredients on a low flame in a pan.
Once fragrant and you get the roasted spice scent, remove it off the flame and let it cool down completely before grinding it until a fine powder is formed.
You can bottle up this homemade powder in an air tight glass jar and store it in a cool dry place.

Chai-spiced Stewed Apples recipe

Peel, core and chop the apples.
In a saucepan, put in the apples, sugar, water and chai spice. Let it boil for atleast 10mins until the liquid has evaporated and you get a slight thick sauce.
Make sure the apples are soft and mushy at this point.
The leftover sauce can also be used and is healthy.
Eat it plain by itself or with your oatmeal or oats.

You can use 3 tbsp ginger powder, 3tbsp cinnamon powder, 1½ tsp cloves powder, 2 tbsp black pepper powder, 2 tbsp cardamom powder, 2tbsp fennel powder, ½tbsp star anise powder, ½tbsp nutmeg powder to make the chai spice.
Chai spice can be used to make masala chai, chai spiced anything. You can also use this spice mix to make a coffee or latte.
This spice mix if stored properly can remain fresh and fragrant for months.
The apples can be stewed and bottled up for future use.
You can use the stewed apples to make an apple pie filling, ice-cream, dessert topping, as jam, applesauce for cakes, etc.

Appetizer, Breakfast, Brunch, Snack

Indian, World over

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