Earl Grey Tea and Pear Loaf…Attempt

Earl Grey Tea and Pear Loaf…Attempt

I’d been wanting to tackle some of the recipes I found on a favorite food blog After Apple Picking. I really like the author’s recipes and they strike my warm fuzzy British baking feelings. Of course I wanted to do the recipe that involved tea first.

Spoiler: Our final product will not look like this.

I knew I couldn’t tackle baking alone and would need help. So I enlisted the help of the tea-loving and sweetly southern Charla who is also a cooking guru (thank goodness). This wouldn’t be possible without her as she brought along half the ingredients and the knowledge.

Here we are all set up and ready to go. I taped the recipe on the cabinet so it was in easy sight and would stay clean.

We used two mixing bowls one for the date and tea mix and one for the flour and sugar mix.

 

Cooking intensity!

Then the two would be mixed together.

Unfortunately we made our first mistake here. We didn’t blend the dates, baking soda, and tea together before putting it in with the flour and pear mix. This caused the final mixture to be really soupy.  (At least this is what Charla told me. I really had no clue what was going on pretty much the entire time. I mean...the poor women had to teach me how to stir properly!)

Charla tried to save it with more flour to make it thicker but it never achieved the consistency that was needed.

We then put it into the oven to bake for 50 minutes and had ourselves a little tea and snacks.

I adore this butterfly embroidered tablecloth I found in Annette's stash.
It comes with matching napkins. 

However, unbeknownst to us the next mistake was occurring (which was totally my fault). I read 170 degrees on the recipe but didn’t read the Celsius part. So, instead we baked it for 50 minutes at 170F…yeah that did basically nothing. So we tried again at the correct temperature. After another hour it still wasn’t done but we were tired of waiting so we got it out.

The crust looked good but the consistency was all wrong. Ansell called it Busted Pudding Bread. It wasn’t loaf like at all, more similar to bread-pudding, but it was still somewhat tasty and you could see the potential. I would definitely try this recipe again.

The Aftermath! I got to watch two episodes of South Park while cleaning dishes.
Oohh the guilty pleasures!

The next Charla and Teal project is Alfajores. Yum!