It's crummy, I know....

It all started when I was watching Cake Boss. He showed how he made (roughly-no recipe is provided by TLC) his crumb cake. A special order was sold by accident and he had to 'whip' one up. How he made those crumbs on his cake HUGE.....they looked so good....so I've stalking the internet for crumb cake recipes. Buddy from Cake Boss said his dad got his 'secret crumb cake' when he first bought the bakery. How lucky is that....no only buying a bakery space but getting their recipes too? Apparently New York Crumb Cake is famous...here is my first attempt with a crumb cake. I found on Vanilla Sugar. She made it with Raspberry with lemon crumbles. I made it with Blackberries and I did not like the lemon crumbles. I don't know why....but I normally LOVE lemon.

I made it again with Blueberries with no lemon....much better.

Berry Buttermilk Crumb Cake
adapted from vanilla sugar

cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 ts baking powder
1 ts baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1- ¼ cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. orange or lemon zest
1 large egg & 1 egg yolk
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup fresh raspberries, blueberries, strawberries or blackberries

crumb topping:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ tsp. salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted & cooled

Preheat oven to 350°F
Make crumb topping by melting the butter, letting it cool. In a bowl mix the flour, brown sugar, salt and add the cooled butter to it and stir well. Set aside till ready. Butter and flour a 10" round springform pan.

In small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Cream (with mixer or by hand) the butter, sugar until pale yellow and fluffy; add the zest, eggs, and beat well for an additional 2-3 minutes.
In batches, add the flour, alternating with the buttermilk until all is combined.

Pour 1/2 the batter into the baking pan and use a spatula to smooth. Top batter with 1/2 the berries. Top with remaining batter and rest of berries. Push the berries only half way into batter.

Using your hands, grab and squeeze crumb mixture putting large chunks on top of batter. Make smaller clumps of crumb mixture and filling between the large clumps. Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture evenly into between the large and medium 'crumbs'.

Bake for approximately 30 - 35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean and the top is golden brown. (I suggest using foil to cover your crumb cake to keep it from over browning like my first attempt did.)



Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 10-15 minutes, before releasing the sides of the spring form and sliding off bottom to transfer to a cooling rack (with the berry/sugar side up).
Let cool completely before serving.






These crumbs were great. I've had some crummy crumb cake where the crumb topping just melted all over the top. These crumbs were big and they kept their shape.





I have another crumb cake recipe that I found and I will do a compare and contrast soon. Perhaps no berries, just plain this time.

Got milk?