Recently, Mark and I were in the downtown
Tucson store of Whole Foods. This is not a store where we normally shop, for
the main reason that it is off our beaten path. We have great stores in our
direct route between work and home – Trader Joe’s, Caravan (Middle Eastern
market), the India Dukaan and Albertson’s. Pretty much everything we need, we
find in one of our regular spots.
I can’t remember what took us to Whole Foods
that day, but we were so glad we went. It was their once-a-month day to show
off local vendors selling Arizona-made products. This gave me the idea to create a recipe using items created by our local artisans or grown by local farmers. You needn’t worry if you aren’t in Arizona, though – most of these vendors ship or you can make
substitutions using your local ingredients. Now, see how easy this will be?
My first foray into this realm will be my Sonoran
Desert Coffee Cake, made with mesquite flour (from the velvet mesquite),
Cheri’s Cactus Marmalade and Arizona-grown pecans – all three products form our
beautiful Sonoran Desert.
The mesquite flour comes from Skeleton Creek
in Aravaipa Canyon just north of Tucson on the other side of the Santa Catalina
Mountains. They have mesquite
flours in varying grades of fineness, flavor and finishes. For this recipe I chose the all-purpose
velvet mesquite flour, as they were out of the XXX superfine velvet mesquite
flour. No worries, though as this
flour produced a cake with fine crumb, as you can see it in the photos!
For the marmalade, we chose the cactus
marmalade from Cheri’s Desert Harvest.
She is one of our go-to artisans for host and hostess gifts when
traveling, with a product line runs the gamut from her jams, jellies and
marmalades to a variety of syrups for pancakes, margaritas and dessert mixes.
She also has a great selection of cactus candy jellies – like square gumdrops
with REAL flavor!
I once took a box of cactus candies to my
Aunt Rae for her 88th birthday. I knew they would be weird for this aging
Vermonter but I wanted her to try something new – something from our new desert
home. Fearing that she would politely say thank you and “save them for a
special occasion,” I suggested she open them right away and try one. Her
first was the prickly pear jelly. She ate two! After dinner she tried the margarita-flavored ones (she
liked limes anyway, so that was easy) but she was balking at the mesquite bean
flavored ones. First, they are brown and second, they are from a seedpod. It
just sounded too odd for her. I suggested she think of them as having a
cinnamon-honey flavor and she caved. AND, she liked it.
The cactus marmalade used in today’s recipe
is made with prickly pear juice and locally grown lemons to produce a
magenta-colored, tart-sweet preserve, and can be used in so many ways – glazes
and baked goods come first to mind, but plain on toast works, too!
Pecans are a native American nut and Arizona
is the fourth largest grower in the United States. Depending on the area from which they come, they can be
small or large (up to 3 inches!) and today’s are a good size with sweet flavor.
So, remembering the time I brought Aunt Rae
the candies, I thought of her coffee cake, as well. My Sonoran Desert Coffee Cake is inspired by her basic
coffee cake recipe – a cake that she would serve to Mark and me on cold,
late-November mornings while we were visiting for Thanksgiving. I thought it would be a fitting tribute
to her if I could use that recipe and make it my own using the mesquite flour,
Cheri’s marmalade and some pecans grown nearby.
So here you are – a Sonoran Desert Coffee
Cake from Aunt Rae’s kitchen to my kitchen to yours!
– David
Sonoran Desert Coffee Cake
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1½ cups flour
½ cup mesquite flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 8-ounce jar Cheri’s Cactus Marmalade
1 cup chopped Arizona pecans
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and beat well
after each addition. Add baking
powder, baking soda, flour, mesquite flour, salt, sour cream and lemon
extract. Blend well. Spread batter into a greased and floured
10-inch tube pan. Put the cactus
marmalade into a bowl and stir to loosen.
Using a wet soup spoon, make a “moat” in the center of the batter and
fill with marmalade. Sprinkle with
nuts and bake for 55 minutes. Let
cake cool 10-15 minutes and remove from pan.
Notes: if you cannot find mesquite flour,
you can substitute whole-wheat flour or all-purpose white flour. Sour cream can be used in place of
Greek yogurt, almond or vanilla extract in place of the lemon, any flavor
marmalade or thick preserve for the cactus marmalade, and pistachios, almonds or
walnuts for the pecans.
Jesica @ Pencil Kitchen
September 19, 2011 at 3:33 amWow so many ingredients i've never heard of… as a coffee lover, coffee cakes are never a thing for me.. Nevertheless, I shall try this recipe because it looks delicious. (And this blog is really creative! with the 2 authors… must be fun..)
Cocoa & Lavender
September 19, 2011 at 11:05 amHi, Jessica! Thanks for reading! Being a cocoa drinker, I don't have this with cocoa, either! But, it is a really tasty treat and, if you can find the mesquite meal, it really adds a very different kind of nutty flavor to the mix.
Doreen and I have really enjoyed working together – we both love good food and wine, and the creative process as well. It is a nice way for us to keep daily contact after I moved from New Hampshire to Arizona.
Looking forward to checking out Pencil Kitchen!
David
Jeau Allen
September 20, 2011 at 6:24 pmThis looks scrumptious! Our XXX Superfine Velvet Mesquite Flour is fluffy and best used for flan or pudding, so the All-Purpose Velvet was indeed the perfect choice. Like you, I am a New Hampshire transplant…my mother sends me maple syrup, and I send her our prickly pear and mesquite syrups. A fair trade, I think. Thank you for your interest in local fare. I look forward to your future blog entries!
Cocoa & Lavender
September 21, 2011 at 12:39 pmThanks, Jeau! I have loved the flavor of mesquite meal since I moved here 6 years ago – and I am sad to say this was my first baking experience with it. What an incredible depth it adds to the flavor! I will look forward to meeting you soon at one of the farmers markets here!
David