If you love moist, light coffee cake with crumb topping, well, again, you’ll have no trouble devouring a piece of this lovely cake.

If you love moist, light coffee cake, you’ll love this cake.

If you love moist, light coffee cake with an abnormally divine ratio of buttery crumb topping to cake…well, then, consider hoarding this entire pan for yourself because that is exactly what you are getting.

A piece of new york style crumb cake on a white plate.

The cake itself is delicious – lightly sweet and fluffy – but nothing extraordinary to write home about in and of itself. However, the sheer amount of golden, sweet crumb topping is the real star of this cake and makes the entire concoction worth enjoying. Bite after bite after bite.

I’ve been waiting for just the right coffee crumb cake to come my way. My husband, who has an unholy love for coffee cakes, deemed this one of the best. Which is great, because I think this is going to be our breakfast Thanksgiving morning. You know, to kick off a day of great eating.

A piece of crumb cake on a white plate with a bite taken out.

One Year Ago: Roasted Fruit with Streusel Topping
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Three Years Ago: Banana Bars with Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

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New York-Style Crumb Cake

Yield: 9 Servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour
4.71 stars (17 ratings)
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Ingredients

Crumb Topping:

  • ⅓ cup (71 g) granulated sugar
  • ⅓ cup (71 g) dark brown sugar
  • ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ⅛ teaspoon salt
  • 8 tablespoons (113 g) butter, melted and still warm
  • 1 ¾ cups (200 g) cake flour

Cake:

  • 1 ¼ cups (143 g) cake flour
  • ½ cup (106 g) granulated sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 6 tablespoons (85 g) butter, cut into 6 pieces, softened but still cool
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ⅓ cup buttermilk
  • Confectioners’ sugar for dusting, optional

Instructions 

  • For the topping, in a medium bowl, combine the sugars, cinnamon, salt and melted butter. Add the flour and stir with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until the mixture is thick and smooth. Set aside to cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.
  • For the cake, adjust an oven rack to upper-middle position and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Cut a 16-inch length parchment paper or aluminum foil and fold lengthwise to 7-inch width. Spray an 8-inch square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray and fit the parchment into the dish, pushing it into the corners and up the sides; allowing the excess to hang over the edges.
  • In a large bowl (or the bowl of an electric mixer), mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer running at low speed (electric or handheld), add the softened butter one piece at a time and continue beating until the mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no visible butter chunks remaining, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and buttermilk and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute, scraping once if necessary.
  • Scrape the batter into the baking pan, spreading it into an even layer. Break apart the crumb topping that was set aside into large pea-sized pieces and spread the topping in an even layer over the batter. Bake the cake until the crumbs are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack at least 30 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan by lifting the parchment or foil overhang. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired, just before serving.

Notes

Flour: if all-purpose flour is substituted for the cake flour, the cake will be dry and tough. I usually don’t have cake flour on hand so I use a substitution of cornstarch and all-purpose flour. I measure 2 tablespoons cornstarch into a 1-cup measure and fill the rest of the way with all-purpose flour. That ends up being 7/8 cup all-purpose flour and 1/8 cup cornstarch. Then I sift the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer onto a piece of waxed paper (repeating as necessary depending on how much I need – for this recipe there is a total of 3 cups of cake flour).
Doubling: the recipe can also be doubled and baked in a 9X13-inch baking dish (increasing the baking time to about 42 minutes).
Author: Mel
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Method: Bake
Serving: 1 Serving, Calories: 430kcal, Carbohydrates: 57g, Protein: 6g, Fat: 20g, Saturated Fat: 12g, Cholesterol: 89mg, Sodium: 304mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 27g

Recommended Products

Mixing Bowl
Wooden Spoon
Bosch Universal Stand Mixer

Recipe Source: adapted slightly from Cook’s Illustrated

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