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Saturday, July 16, 2011

The adventure of the skype tea party

I decided to go to a Skype tea party being hosted by The Devotea

Tea and the Art of Friendship

English breakfast date cake

Saturday morning I went to whole foods to purchase the ingredients. I ended up with:

  • dozen eggs

  • domino light brown sugar

  • iodized salt

  • baking powder

  • king Aurthur all-purpose flour

  • fresh dates

  • pound salted butter

  • gelato

  • Tazo Jasmine Pearls

  • Tazo cucumber white



I could not find the self-rising flour.

Ingredients (serves 6)


  • 3 tbs English breakfast tea leaves


    • x2=9 tbs

    • 1 tbs = 3 tsp

    • I don't have English breakfast

    • My Russian Morning Kusmi only had 12 or so...



  • 250g Trident pitted dates, roughly chopped


    • x2=500g

    • I bought fresh dates, with pits - so i cut them up and removed the pits

    • 14.16 ounces = 401.429247 grams a little shy of the amount of dates needed, and this was measured when they had pits



  • 1 3/4 cups (265g) self-raising flour



  • 1/4 cup (40g) plain flour


    • x2=.5


  • 3/4 cup (155g) brown sugar


    • x2=1.5c

    • It didn't say dark, or light, so I selected light.


  • 125g butter, melted


    • x2=250

    • 250 grams = 8.81849049 ounces

    • I ended up using 2.25 sticks ~ 9.2 oz


  • 2 eggs, lightly whisked


    • x2=4


  • Butter, to serve



Method

Preheat oven 160°C. Converted C to F and pre-heated the oven to 320&def;F


Grease a 22cm x 11cm loaf pan. I had a 8.5"x8.5" pan as my smallest pan, so i went with a square cake pan and decided to double the recipe.


Combine the tea leaves and 1 1/3 cups (330ml) boiling water in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil over a medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer 1-2 minutes. Strain through a piece of muslin over a bowl, squeezing out all the liquid from the tea leaves. Discard the tea leaves. I tried to use 2 and 2/3 c water and all my tea leaves and lost track of them boiling, I hope it wasn't too short or too long.


Place the dates in a bowl and pour over the tea. Allow to cool, then cover and set aside overnight. What consistency was it supposed to be? mine was a lot of liquid with dates sitting at the bottom. I let it sit as long as it took me to mix up the batter.


Sift the flours into a large bowl, stir in the sugar. Add the date mixture, butter and eggs and stir until just combined.


Spoon the mixture into pan. Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Set aside to cool. Serve sliced with butter.






So I lacked large enough bowls, and just tossed everything into the biggest one i could find and tried to stir. I don't think it got mixed well, and I also think it was too watery and I must have measured wrong somewhere. Hopefully it turns out edible!

Update: Grandmother and Grandfather both liked the cake, it turned out like a very moist spice cake with date bits in it. Victory!

3 comments:

The Devotea said...

I'm sure it will be great and I can't wait to see it.

Elena said...

My two girls want to try your recipe this weekend........let's see if they are so good to make it tasty......

AmazonV said...

Elena I hopw the recipie turned out well for you all!