20140730_113457Awhile back, I had a huge zucchini that my mom gave me and I didn’t want it to go bad.  I looked in every cookbook I own, and all I found for zucchini bread was something that used boxed spice cake mix.  Not what I was looking for.

Then I went on Facebook and serendipitously one of my friends had posted a link to this Glazed Lemon Zucchini bread at Lil’ Luna.  The dearest husband loves lemon breads, so I thought it looked like a great candidate.  Then I read the recipe and realized I had no lemon zest, no buttermilk, and no cake flour.

I have a standard substitution for buttermilk that I use all the time, since I hardly ever keep it on hand.  1 tablespoon vinegar per cup of milk, let it set five minutes or so.  It isn’t as thick as buttermilk, but it thickens up a little and has the acid that baking soda recipes need.

Awhile back I needed cake flour for an actual cake, so I knew that all-purpose flour sifted together with some cornstarch would work, and a quick google search refreshed my memory of exactly how much cornstarch.  Another google search also revealed that 1/2 tsp. lemon extract would substitute for the lemon zest called for in the recipe.

Then I was in business.  The bread turned out really good.  Sometimes I think about how the Internet has changed how I cook, and what I cook, and it is pretty amazing.  I have quite a few cookbooks (and there are more all the time) but I rely heavily on the Internet for “quick, what can I make with ______” questions, and substitutions, and the mouthwatering descriptions and pictures of food on blogs are often the impetus for me to cook foods I haven’t tried before, especially foods from other countries, much more so than simply reading through recipes in a cookbook.