A delicious Almond Blueberry Coffeecake to say I'm sorry

I knew it had been a long time since I've written, but I hadn't realized just how long it has been until today. Wow. I'm not exactly sure what I've been up to for the past - ahem - 2 months or so. But, I feel as though I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. There have been so many days when I've made something, and thought "I have GOT to write about this!", and then haven't done so. There have been more days when I've been busy in the kitchen, and once I taste the finished product, have thought to myself "Nope, not good enough to share."

We didn't buy a lot of packaged foods before, but I think I have been doing quite well with using even less. I've made several batches of crackers, and last week I spent hours fighting cherries and blueberries making a ton of freezer jam. I noticed this morning that my fingers are finally back to a flesh color!

This was only some of the mess I made while crushing the cherries. There was cherry juice EVERYWHERE.

This is only the cherry jam. When I was done with the blueberry jam, I was so tired, I forgot to take a picture. But I didn't mind the mess or the exhaustion because now we've got plenty of jam in the freezer to add to our homemade yogurt, and to use in recipes.

Lately, every morning for breakfast, Patrick has a yogurt and something extra. This week, I asked him what he had a craving for, and he requested a coffeecake. I don't make coffeecakes very often, and when I do make them we usually eat them as dessert. As soon as he mentioned it, I knew I wanted to use some of this bounty of jam I have stashed in the freezer.

I looked through a lot of my cookbooks, and couldn't find a recipe that matched what I had already come up with in my head. One of my favorite cookbooks is "The American Country Inn and Bed and Breakfast Cookbook" by Kitty and Lucian Maynard. I have both Volume One and Volume Two as well as the Best Recipes Collection. In Volume One I found a recipe for an Apple Coffee Cake from Murphy's House Bed and Breakfast in Great Fall, Montana that I knew I could tweak to get the results that I was looking for. This will definitely be a recipe that I make more often!

Almond Blueberry Coffeecake

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
approximately 20 ounces of jam, any flavor
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

In a medium mixing bowl cream the 1/2 cup butter and the 1 cup sugar with an electric mixer. Add the eggs, the almond extract and the milk, mixing well after each addition.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

Pour half of the batter into the prepared baking pan. Spoon half of the jam over the batter. Repeat with remaining batter and jam. Sprinkle the top of the final jam layer with brown sugar and nuts. Drizzle with melted butter. Bake for 35-45 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Serve warm.