The humble crumb cake is often overlooked in favor of the more flashy coffee cake, but this New York Style Crumb Cake may change that thinking forever! This crumb cake has a wonderfully light, moist, velvety textured cake topped by an extra generous helping of soft and flavorful crumb topping (the best part of a crumb cake!) enhanced with some extra cinnamon spice.
The secret of the fantastic light texture and flavor of this cake is buttermilk, cake flour and dark brown sugar. All of these ingredients are absolutely essential to the overall exceptional turn out of this tasty crumb cake. Here is how you can make your own:
You can find the entire recipe here. Start by lining an 8″x8″ baking dish with aluminum foil. Leave approximately an inch or two overhang for easy removal of the finished cake. Spray the foil with Pam and set aside. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Start with the crumb topping:
Melt the butter and set aside. Whisk together the granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, salt and cinnamon. I used about a half tablespoon of cinnamon because I like that extra spicy-sweet flavor.
Add the warm melted butter to the sugar mixture and whisk together.
Add the cake flour and mix with a spoon until a dough is formed.
Set dough aside to cool to room temperature, around 10-15 minutes. After dough has cooled, finish the crumb topping by breaking apart the dough and rolling into little balls of “crumbs” or do what I did and drag a fork through the dough to get a nice and easy crumb topping.
Make the cake:
In an electric mixer mix together the cake flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.
With the mixer running, add the softened butter a little piece at a time until the mixture has small crumbs and no visible chunks of butter.
Add the egg, yolk, vanilla and buttermilk and beat until light and fluffy.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Scatter the crumb topping evenly over the batter.
Once all the crumb topping is evenly placed over the batter, cook the cake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting. Dust with powdered sugar just before serving.
