A Bake That Didn’t Bake

I have a question for all my smart bloggers out there today after a very odd baking experience that I had this morning/afternoon :).

This Morning

As is normal pretty much every morning, Zach got up way before me (and the sunrise) this morning.  Think 6:something.

By the time I was stirring closer to 8 AM — Zach’s appetite had plenty of time to build and create something delicious.

He woke me up with ideas of a fun bread/bake using a box mix of blueberry muffins that we had in our cabinet for far-too-long (It may or may not have moved across the country with us).

I was a bit skeptical — but he was very excited and did some homework on what we could do.  So I agreed to pick up some necessary ingredients after my run — and take a shot at a:

Blueberry Coffee Crumble with Raspberry Filling

The major players

 

So let’s try and put together a very odd baking experience.

I started the process by making the filling, my homemade raspberry jam as the filling to the bread.  This part actually turned out really well.  Sweet, tangy, and just like you want it :).

While that was on the stove top, I made the crumble topping.

Crumble Topping

Ingredients:

• 1/2 plus 1/8 cup of Oat flour
• 1/2 plus 1/8 cup of granulated sugar
• 3 melted tablespoons of butter

I literally just sifted the dry ingredients and then mixed in the melted butter.  Easy peasy and it made a delicious crumble topping.

 

I let the jam cool in the freezer for about 30 minutes before I worked on the cake/bread mix.

Blueberry “bread”

Ingredients

• One bix of jiffy blueberry muffin mix (meant to make 4-6 muffins)
• 2 egg whites
• teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/4 cup of 2% milk
• 2 handfuls of frozen wild blueberries
• 2 tablespoons of oat flour (added at the end to make dough thicker)

I added the egg whites and milk per instructions on the box to make into a coffee cake.  I added the oat flour, vanilla, and wild blueberries per taste.

I tasted the mix and was happy with where it was starting.

By the time I was confident that the jam had set, and everything would be ready to go, I added everything together.

First:  pour the blueberry bread into a greased bread pan

Second: spead the raspberry jam on top

Third:  put the crumble on top of the jam layer

BAKE.

The box had guessed that it would take about 20 -25 minutes to bake.

For the first 20 minutes, I baked it with foil on, to keep from burning the crumble.

We pulled off the foil thinking it would be another 15 minutes.

15 minutes later, nowhere near set.

30 minutes later, nowhere closer.

an HOUR later, still far from set.  So we uped the temp to 375 degrees, put the foil back on, and let it cook another 20 minutes.

STILL unset.

We were PERPLEXED.  I know we took a lot of liberties with this “recipe” . . . but I had never seen anything like this happen before when I’ve made bread or any baked goods.

About 2 hours after we started, the bread was still wet on top, but a toothpick came out clean.  So, I made an executive decision to pull it out, even though the top appeared a bit “goopy” (for lack of better word.

 

Ultimately, this is what we came out with.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t bring this to a party or to share — but the two of us still ate it!

To be completely honest — it tasted GREAT.  Crispy on the edges, and the topping was crumbly on top, and almost caramelly in the goopy parts.   So I wasn’t complaining on flavor, just really unsure of what happened or what I may have done?!

So here is where I’m reaching out to all of you — my expeirenced baking friends (or anyone who has an opinion!) —

What did I do?  What could I have done different? Has anything like this happened to you before?