Quick Crumb Coffee Cake

Paul Lynch
Cakes
Quick Crumb Coffee Cake

Quick Crumb Coffee Cake

Originally from America’s Test Kitchen.

Makes two 23cm cakes, each serving 6 - 8. The recipe claim that the batter will bake unevenly in a large pan, but that hasn’t been my experience; it may depend on pan versus oven size. The advantage of the two cake tin method is that you could freeze one before baking.

Ingredients

Topping

  • 65g light brown sugar
  • 65g granulated sugar (or use caster, or all light brown sugar)
  • 50g all-purpose flour
  • 60g unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 115g pecans or walnuts, chopped coarse

Cake

  • 425g plain flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 440ml sour cream
  • 200g light brown sugar
  • 200g granulated sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 105g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180C, and grease two 23cm cake pans.
  2. The topping: mix the sugars, flour, butter, and cinnamon together with a quick couple of pulses in a food processor (or by hand) until the mixture resembles wet sand. Stir in the nuts and set aside.
  3. The cake: Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk the sour cream, sugars, eggs, and melted butter together until smooth. Gently fold the egg mixture into the flour mixture until smooth (do not overmix).
  4. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the top of both cakes.
  5. Bake until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out with just a few crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. Let the cakes cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before serving.


Note

Comparing this with Sour Cream Coffee Cake is an interesting exercise; proportions are generally very similar, but look at the differences: much greater quantity of baking powder in this one, more cinnamon, and also use of granulated sugar instead of half of the brown sugar, and less butter.

In both cases the sponge is very tender, but the topping/streusel here is quite gritty, and the baking powder can be assertive (but not always). Both are still good eating the next day. Overall, I prefer Sour Cream Coffee Cake: better streusel.