Candie's Bakery-Style Crumb Coffee Cake

Submitted by Gingerbee

"On Saturday morning my Dad would rise early, go for the paper and stop in the bakery for our weekend treats. He would bring home crumb cake because it was Mom's favorite (we didn't turn our nose up either). As he travelled home, some crumbs would fall to the bottom of the box and Mom would spoon them out and right onto her plate. She'd say she could eat a box of crumbs! This crumb coffee cake is simple, but it's the crumbs that make it wonderful! I hope you'll try it and make you own memories."

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 12
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 3 3⁄4 cups flour
• 1 3⁄4 cups sugar
• 1⁄4 lb butter (softened)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1⁄2 - 2⁄3 cup milk

• Topping

• 1⁄4 lb butter
• 1⁄4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• confectioners' sugar (for dusting)

directions

1. Mix together in a large bowl flour, sugar, baking powder, salt; and set aside 2 cups of this mixture for the topping.
2. Add butter, eggs and milk and mix well.
3. Grease and flour a 13-inch rectangle baking pan.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
5. For Topping: Take the 2 cups of reserved flour mixture and add to the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt.
6. Mix together with your fingers until blended and lumps begin to form when you squeeze the mixture making small pea-sized crumbs.
7. (make them to your liking).
8. We love HUGE crumbs on ours, so I squeeze handfuls of the mixture and let the big pieces drop off onto the cake batter and cover the surface with smaller ones as I empty the bowl.
9. Cover the entire cake with crumbly mixture.
10. Bake for 30 minutes.
11. When cooled, dust with confectioner's sugar.

Reviews

[Victoria M.]

This sounds just like what the German bakeries all of my life had and the family bought it often. I'm dying to try it, but what bothers me is the 2 tsp of cinnamon in the topping. We don't remember this cake having a cinnamon flavor & 2 tsp is a lot. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Taylor in Belgium]

What can I say, yes I made the complete recipe once, I found it also dry, but the crumb topping was to die for!!! I like the topping so much I made the dry ingredients part 4 different times now and keep a container of dry on hand! Just take out a cup or two, add the sugar and butter and use it on top of crisps, apple pies, cherries, sliced peaches...it is awesome! Like your mom, I could just eat the topping alone! Thanks for a keeper!!

 

[falafel]

Nice flavor, but the cake came out dry and tough. I used the correct size pan and baked at 350 (verified with in-oven thermometer), but it was very undercooked in the middle after 30 minutes so I increased cooking time to about 45 minutes. I will not make this again.

 

[alamahara]

I have to give credit where credit is due. This was definately very yummy!!! The cake was an excellent texture, even though I was in a pinch and used self rising flour. Oh...the crumbs were good! :) I like them big too. I would have liked if the 'crumbs' were more tender. They were sort of crisp. I will have to play with the recipe and see what I can get. But either way, I will make this over and over.

 

[elsieacross the pon]

This cake takes me back many years to 1942 when I found a recipe very like this in an old Canadian magazine. It was so different - streusel toppingswere new to us then. It's an easy, excellent recipe and certainly a "keeper". Thank you for posting it - I lost mine in the dim Past.