New York-Style Crumb Cake

Growing up, I didn't have much exposure to crumb cake outside of supermarket Entenmann's. I've eaten a lot of bites of bad crumb cake, but I hadn't encountered great crumb cake until I moved to New Jersey. Track 5 coffee had my very favorite cappuccinos, amazing bear claws, stellar mini quiches, as well as a fantastic vanilla crumb cake. Caleb raved about how much he liked it and commented that A) I'd never made him crumb cake and B) it would be nigh impossible to beat Track 5's crumb cake.

Obviously, I had to try and prove him wrong. I searched my EatYourBooks library - I love that service, it makes finding recipes I might want to make so much faster than picking up books at random. (No, this is not sponsored in any way). Happily, it turns out my trusty collection of Baked cookbooks contained one New-York style crumb cake recipe within Baked Explorations, so that's where I started my attempt to beat Track 5's vanilla crumb cake.

These are the six key things to know:

1. New York-style crumb cake is so named because it contains massive crumbs at a virtually 1:1 ratio of crumb:cake.
2. Crumb cake does not contain nuts in the topping and there is no inner swirl like there is in a coffee cake.
3. Caleb rates the Track 5 crumb cake a solid 10/10 and this one an 8/10. I made Baked's crumb cake for our crumb cake bake-off at work and it was the winner by a huge margin.
4. I've tried multiple other recipes for "double crumb cake", "New York crumb cake", and "New Jersey crumb cake". None of them are nearly as good as this one, including the yeast-based one from Smitten Kitchen Every Day, which was sadly rather bland (5.5/10) and the America's Test Kitchen version that calls for cake flour in the topping to prevent the crumb from sinking (the crumb still sank and it didn't have the same satisfying sugary crunch (7/10 for the topping)). I've also tried adding the crumb 10 minutes into baking, as recommended by some other NJ-style recipes I found, but this made no difference to crumb sinkage.
5. You do need to plan ahead for this crumb cake because the topping needs to be as dried out as possible to help prevent sinkage. At least 2-3 hours is necessary, but a full 12 hours is even better. It's worth it.
6. Don't be tempted to substitute yogurt for sour cream, the cake dries out rapidly, and is substantially inferior on the second day, whereas the sour cream-based crumb cake keeps well for at least 3 days.

New York-Style Crumb Cake

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Prep Time: 40 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes minutes

Drying time: 3 hours hours

Total Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 8 people

Ingredients

Crumb Topping*

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter melted and still warm
• 1 packed cup (220 grams) dark brown sugar
• ½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 ¼ cups (~300 grams) all-purpose flour

Cake

• 2 ½ cups (330 grams) all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 ½ cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs at room temperature ideally
• 1 ¼ cups (300 grams) sour cream** at room temperature ideally
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

Crumb Topping

• Whisk the brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt, and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Add the melted butter and whisk to combine. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the flour. The mixture will seem like a really dense, wet sand.
  
• Spread the wet crumb topping out onto a quarter sheet pan so as much surface area is exposed as possible. Let the crumb dry out for at least 2-3 hours, optimally overnight. You can loosely cover it with plastic wrap if you feel you must.
  

Cake

• Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with a parchment paper sling or coat the pan lightly in cooking spray.
  
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and granulated sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
  
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, waiting for the first to incorporate fully before adding the second. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, then beat for an additional 30 seconds.
  
• Add the sour cream and vanilla to the mixer bowl and beat just until incorporated. Finally, add the flour mixture in three stages, beating just until combined.
• Transfer the batter to the prepared baking pan. The batter will be thick and difficult to spread out, but use a rubber spatula to gently nudge it into the corners. Pick up the dried out crumb topping by big handfuls, break off large chunks, and scatter them over the top of the batter. Use all the crumb topping, it make a very thick layer.
  
• Bake for 45-55 minutes (rotating the pan at 15 minute intervals), or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for at least 30 minutes. Optionally, sprinkle the top of the crumb cake with powdered sugar before serving.

Notes

*letting the crumb topping dry out overnight is highly preferred.

**don't substitute yogurt for sour cream unless you're planning to finish the cake in one day.