Blueberry Not-Pancakes

Improvising in the kitchen is good, so long as you are willing to eat the results. Today? Salvaged, but just barely.
It all began when a neighbor borrowed a ladder, which was really our other neighbor's, who didn't mind. Being that sort of community, the borrower gave us a bag of organic blueberries fresh from the farmers market, and we took them next door to give the ladder owner first dibs. Later that evening we enjoyed two bowls of fresh blueberry crumble, and sent some scoops of vanilla ice cream back with the rest of the pan. Following so far?

The crumble was pie-like, and delicious; and it put the idea of baking blueberries into something coffee-cake-ish into my mind.  But I had only saved about a cup from the bagful. So I modified my plan to pancakes. But I hadn't tried making gluten-free pancakes for some time, so I rose early today and asked the internet to teach me what to change from a standard recipe.  A bewilderingly wide range of answers popped up, some as simple as 'buy a bag of gluten-free pancake mix' and some too complex to fit on one page.  So I got the general gist - a fairly standard ratio of egg, milk/liquid, and dry ingredients. And off I went to see what my cupboards held. Kindly bear in mind here that my gluten-free waffles are a smash hit even with wanton wheat-eaters, and they are the result of simple tinkering.

But the combination (I won't tell - you should not attempt to replicate it) did not behave as I hoped. After adjusting here and there, I heated the iron skillet and drop a couple ladlefuls in. Nice flavor, good browning, reasonably light and fluffy on the outer edges - but mushy in the middles. Repeats confirmed that technique was not to blame. What to make of the woeful bowlful of batter, then? Coffee cake!

With a little orange zest, a drizzle of agave syrup, and the berries stirred in, the whole messed plopped goopily into a buttered baking dish. Then a bit of lemon curd was swirled in/over it, and a bit of turbinado sugar to caramelize the top.  I pulled it out and tested with toothpicks twice. Both times it seemed done; but the first time I disbelieved the results, remembering how difficult it was to cook the griddle cakes through. The second time the edges were too brown to leave in any longer; so even if it wasn't done, it was done.

Indeed, the outer inch all the way around came out perfectly. The middle? May get cooked on its own, one last time - or it may be time to throw in the tea towel.