New York-Style Crumb Cake

Difficulty level: Easy

Prep time: 25 minutes

Cook time: 40 minutes

Serves: 8-10 people

Crumb cake is a delicious and indulgent combination of the usual baking suspects: butter, flour and lots of sugar. As expected, when these are your three main ingredients they are simply too big to fail, as might be your waistline if you spoil your sweet-tooth. Most likely, you are like us and the only time you have savored this treat is in a coffee shop or out of an Entenmann's box from the grocery store. We sought out to find a recipe that would satisfy our craving from scratch. What we discovered is a recipe that is as simple as it is delicious and some interesting facts about the cake along the way.

Not surprisingly, most people have a difficult time distinguishing crumb cake from a regular streusel-topped coffee cake. This is because both cakes originated in Northern/Central Europe sometime in the 17th Century and were brought to America by German, Dutch and Scandinavian immigrants. The Krummelkuchen made its debut in New York City in the late 1800s and we've been enjoying crumb cake ever since!

Crumb cake consists of two major parts: yellow cake and crumb topping. Perhaps the most challenging part of this rather simple recipe is in the yellow cake. It is crucial to keep it moistened but not greasy. While we were sifting through recipes to find the perfect method we discovered that replacing some of the butter with buttermilk yielded those imperative results. Another noteworthy discovery we made along the way is the cruciality of cake flour rather than your standard all-purpose flour. Using the latter will likely make your cake dry and tough-reminiscent of cardboard, which is never delicious.

CRUMB TOPPING

8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and still warm

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

1 3/4 cups cake flour

CAKE

1 1/4 cups cake flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

6 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1 large yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. FOR THE CRUMB TOPPING: Whisk melted butter, sugars, cinnamon and salt together in a medium bowl. Stir in the flour until the mixture resembles a thick, cohesive dough. Set aside to cool to room temperature while you begin preparing the cake.

2. FOR THE CAKE: Heat oven to 325° and adjust an over rack to the upper-middle position. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil allowing the extra foil to hang over the edges of the pan.

3. Whisk the flour, granulated sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl until combined. Add the softened butter in 1 tbsp increments, beating the mixture with a hand-held mixer at low speed until it resembles moist crumbs, with no visible butter chunks remaining. Add the buttermilk, egg, yolk and vanilla and beat at medium-high speed until the batter is light and fluffy.

4. Pour the batter in to the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula. Break the crumb topping in to large pea-size pieces and spread in an even layer over the batter. When topping the cake make sure not to push the crumbs in to the batter, the cake will take care of that for you.

5. Bake until the crumbs are golden and a cake tester inserted in to the center comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes. Cool the cake for at least 30 minutes; remove from the baking pan by lifting the foil lining.

6. Enjoy!

Happy tasting,

Paul/a