Today on Sugar Spun Run, I'll be showing you how to make a crumb cake.
Hey Sugar Spun Bakers, Sam here! And today,
I am so excited to be sharing another carefully tested, well
researched, and perfected recipe.
While crumb cake is quite similar to coffee cake,
that you're probably really familiar with, it has a few subtle differences that I think you
are going to really love, especially if you're a big streusel fan,
like I am. Today's cake has a delicate super, super soft crumb and a ton of crumb
topping, so let's go ahead and get started.
Go ahead and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit,
and let's begin. Now in a large bowl,
we're going to combine 1 and 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour,
with 1 cup of granulated sugar,
and 1/3 cup of firmly packed, light brown sugar. We’ll also add 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder,
1/2 teaspoon of table salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.
Now for today's recipe, you are going to want to use either a stand mixer, or an electric hand
mixer. I'm using my hand mixer today.
And we're just going to briefly stir everything together until it's nicely combined.
All right, now to get the super, super soft, moist, tender crumb that I wanted
for today's coffee cake,
we're going to do something a little bit differently.
We are going to be using the reverse creaming method,
which means we are going to be adding our butter into our dry ingredients.
Instead of creaming it with the sugar, like you do in the traditional creaming method.
Now, this technique is one of my favorites because it creates a super—
it's a tight crumb—but it's a super plush and super soft crumb.
I feel like it stays soft a lot longer than the traditional creaming method does,
and it's because when we add the butter this way,
that butter is able to coat all of the flour particles differently.
It inhibits the gluten formation and it just makes a really tender cake—love this method.
Now, we have eight tablespoons of softened butter—
mine could be a little bit more soft,
but this will work—and we are going to just add one tablespoon of butter at a time.
And then use our mixer to beat that butter into the dry ingredients.
Now this does take a little bit of time. If you have a stand mixer,
it'll go a lot faster, but you just want to make sure that each tablespoon of butter is completely
combined into the flour ingredients before you add the next tablespoon.
All right, so I've added all my butter. I want you to see what this looks like.
I have a mixture that resembles coarse, sandy crumbs.
Now, in a separate bowl, or I'm using a measuring cup because I want something with a spout.
It’s going to make it easier to pour this in a second.
We are going to combine one cup of full fat sour cream.
We're also going to be adding one large egg, as well as one large egg yolk,
so you can just discard that white—just using the yolk. We’ll also add one and a
half teaspoons of vanilla extract.
And just whisk these ingredients together until those egg yolks are nicely
broken up and your mixture is really well combined.
All right, now with your mixer on low speed,
we are just going to gradually pour the sour cream mixture into our flour and butter mixture.
I’ve added most of it. I’m just going to use a spatula here now
because I want to make sure we get all of that
sour cream mixture in the bowl. Now
just continue to mix until you have a silky smooth batter.
It'll be kind of thick—that's totally normal,
but you want it to be completely smooth and lump-free.
And of course, we want to use a spatula to scrape
the sides and bottom of the bowl
because it's important to make sure that there are no lumps hiding anywhere on the sides.
We'll give this one more brief stir with our electric mixer.
All right, so we are going to be baking today's recipe in a 9 by 9 inch baking pan.
So I'm just going to lightly spray this with a little bit of baking spray.
And I just like to use a napkin to make sure that’s spread evenly over the bottom
and the sides of the pan. And we’ll pour this batter evenly into the pan.
It is kind of a thick batter, just use your spatula to smooth the surface.
Okay, before we go any further with this, we need to prepare our crumb topping.
And today's recipe does make a lot of crumb because it's a crumb cake.
You're going to need a separate bowl. And we're going to combine
1 and 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour with 2/3 cup of brown sugar.
You can use light or dark brown sugar. I'm actually using a mix of 1/3 cup of
each. We’ll also add 1/2 cup of granulated sugar,
and I also like to add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, which
technically makes this a cinnamon crumb cake.
You can leave it out if you'd like, but it really adds a nice flavor.
Add 1/4 teaspoon table salt. Just stir these ingredients together.
And then we are going to add 1/2 cup of melted,
unsalted butter. We’ll just drizzle that in. Make sure you get all of it in there.
And then to make the crumb topping, I just like to use a fork to toss the butter
and the other ingredients together.
Because I want it to be nice and clumpy, usually want to have it all mixed,
I'll use my hands just to press some of the pieces together
and make sure I have a nice consistency that clings together really
well. Now we'll just evenly scatter this over our crumb cake batter.
And we'll take this over to our preheated oven where it is going to need to bake
for about 45 to 50 minutes—
maybe a little bit less if you are using a dark-colored pan,
probably a little bit longer if you're using a glass pan.
And you just want to bake it until it's completely cooked through.
The best way to tell that is to use the toothpick test:
a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake should come out clean
or preferably with a few moist crumbs,
and that's how you know it's finished. Now just let this cake to cool completely.
And, if you'd like, for that final
finish, you can dust the top with a little bit of powdered sugar.
Make sure you don't add the powdered sugar until it's cooled,
otherwise it's just going to melt all over the surface.
Okay, let's go ahead and dig in and take a look at this cake.
Look at that beautiful crumb layer.
I'm so excited to dig into this. And that is how you make my all-time favorite crumb cake.
I really think you're going to love this one, from the super
soft cake crumb to that rich, thick, crumbly
crumb topping layer. I just can't wait for you to try it.
If you do, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
I always love hearing from you. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
This is so good.