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




• x2=3.5c


• I used normal flour then added baking powder and salt How To Make Self-Rising 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.

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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!