Crumb Cake

*Recipe follows story

Crumb cake holds a special place in my heart, and large slices of this dense and buttery treat remind me of my cousins.  

Anthony and Maria, for as long as I can remember, loved their crumb cake. And, recently, we were fortunate enough to have a cousin gathering at their summer house in Riverhead.  We sampled crumb cakes from a local Long Island bakery).  
Junda’s is a cute country bakery, in a little house, on Main Road in Jamesport, NY - and while my cousin was making the innocent crumb cake purchase,  I imagined going gangster rogue Tina, taking out the cashier, stuffing her in some closet, way in the back of the bakery, putting on an apron and naming myself chief of Junda’s…

Except now the joint would be called the Nom Nom Den.  Or The Den of Nom Noms.  Or Tina’s Nom Noms.  I don’t know, I just took someone out - I can’t settle on a name instantly. I’ll get there.
But the point is I dream of having a bakery!
Dang.   

For dessert we sliced thick pieces of crumb cake, picking crumbs off of the top and leaving bare holes of golden cake scattered about.  Clearly we woke up and repeated the same process for breakfast.  Pick crumbs, slice up, nom.  It was perfect.  

I found myself alone last Sunday.  It was pouring rain, so I sequestered myself and cooked and baked all day.  

I thought about the visit with my cousins.  I fantasized about late night coffee and crumb cake and I found myself baking one.  I continued to fantasize about my own little nom shop on the side of some small road in some podunk town and I grinned.

I happily shared the baked goods at the work place.
I also happily kept a piece for myself… 

For crumb cake undoubtedly makes the end of long work days a little bit sweeter…
And so does Mad Men and 47 minutes of Jon Hamm.
Hey hey hey.

Crumb Cake
*adapted from my Sour Cream Blueberry Muffin Recipe which is a spin off of my mom’s banana cake recipe…

For Cake

1 stick of butter (room temperature)
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. sour cream
1/4 c. mascarpone (I had it lying around, of course, so I thought why not make this crumb cake even more of a fattening special)
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt

For Crumble

2/3 c. flour
2/3 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
6 T. butter melted

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Coat an 8x8 pyrex baking dish with non-stick cooking spray
-Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and put aside
-With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar
-Beat in eggs and vanilla
-Fold in sour cream and mascarpone
-Add flour mixture to wet ingredients and mix until full incorporated
-Pour batter into greased baking dish and put aside
-To a  medium bowl, add additional flour, brown sugar and cinnamon together and mix with a fork
-Add melted butter and mix until crumbles form
-Sprinkle over the top of batter and bake for 22-27 minutes

Let cool, pick crumbs off of the top, and slice

Nom Nom Tip:

This recipe makes a lot of batter. Next time I’m going to use this same cake recipe but divide the batter into 2 dishes and double the crumble recipe.  The cake rose and came super thick, so the crumb to cake ratio was uneven.  As it stood, the crumb cake was super tasty and moist, but I like a larger heap of crumb on my crumb cake - so if you do too, use this Nom Nom Tip.