New trick

If necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness must certainly be its kooky old aunt. Many times I will improvise with or substitute ingredients simply because I don't have the proper ones on hand and am too lazy to go out and get them. (The fact that I live in San Francisco, surrounded by shops within walking distance that probably carry almost anything I could need, speaks volumes about my degree of laziness.) Sometimes my improvisation goes terribly awry, and my dastardly experiment goes directly into the mulch can. Other times, though, I come up with something worth repeating.

This morning I wanted to make coffee cake. I thought for sure I had all the necessary ingredients — butter, sugar, eggs, flour, cinnamon — but I was missing one that is key: sour cream. Every recipe seemed to call for it, and I had nothing in the house with a similar texture. I pored through a few recipe books, but no luck. Then, as a last resort, I pulled out The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, copyright 1980. It was my grandmother's and the first cookbook I used when I got interested in cooking back in high school. I hadn't opened it in about 15 years, but there — on page 430 — was a recipe for cherry coffee cake, sans sour cream. I didn't have the cherry pie filling it called for, but I did have an unopened jar of organic blueberry preserves. I substituted orange zest for lemon, added some ground cardamom, and voila! I was rewarded with a pretty damned good coffee cake.

Not bad for a lazy Saturday morning.

Blueberry Cardamom Coffee Cake
Adapted from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook.

Ingredients:

1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
10 tbs unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1 10-oz jar blueberry preserves
1 tsp orange zest

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch square baking pan.

2. In a large bowl, mix 1-1/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt with a fork.

3. Add 1/2 cup melted butter, milk, egg and vanilla to flour mixture. Beat just until well mixed and pour into prepared pan, smoothing top.

4. In a small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tbs butter with the ground cardamom until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

5. Sprinkle half of crumb mixture evenly on batter in pan.

6. Stir orange zest into blueberry preserves and pour over crumb mixture in pan. (Preserves will not completely cover crumbs. Sprinkle rest of crumb mixture on preserves.

7. Bake 1 hour, or until top is golden.