Kricket Cakes

I like to call this recipe coffee cake because it sounds much more appropriate to eat with coffee! However, I read somwhere that a crumb cake is distinguished by its dough-crumb topping as opposed to a thinner streusel topping that is often used on coffee cake. This cake is a little bit denser than most coffee cakes, kind of like a muffin, but sweeter. It’s crunchy topping is a great contrast to its cakey body… mmmmm…

This recipe is based on the New York Style Crumb Cake from Cook’s Illustrated magazine. It makes enough cake for 9-12 people depending on how greedy they are!

For the Topping:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour

For the Cake:

• 1 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• confectioner’s sugar, enough for dusting

To Make the Topping:

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, set aside.
2. Whisk the sugars, cinnamon, salt and butter in a medium bowl.
3. Stir flour into mixture with a spoon until dough forms.
4. Set aside to cool to room temperature, about 15 minutes.

To Make the Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Grease an 8 inch square baking pan, set aside.
3. Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt on low speed in a stand mixer with paddle attachment or hand mixer.
4. Cut butter into 10 pieces and add one at a time with mixer running. Continue beating until mixture resembles moist crumbs.
5. Add egg, yolk, vanilla, and buttermilk and beat until light and fluffy.
6. Transfer batter to baking pan and spread evenly. (It will appear to be a small amount of batter.)
7. Break apart topping dough into pea-sized pieces and distribute evenly over the cake dough. Do not press into the dough.
8. Bake 35-40 minutes.
9. Cool on a rack at least 30 minutes.
10. Slice and dust with confectioner’s sugar.

(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Cakes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.