After a loooooong hiatus, I return to present you the ever so humble Best Coffee Cake. See what I did there, I said humble but this is (IMO) the very Best Coffee Cake. Why is it best? Because of the crumb topping. I have used this crumb topping on a LOT of other baked goods and one of the comments I’ve heard was: “I’d like to scrape the topping off and eat just that.” So let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients for crumb topping:
- 1 packed cup of brown sugar (dark or light, no specific preference)
- 0.5 cup white granulated sugar
- 0.5 teaspoon salt (I use kosher salt so I tend to go with a little more than 0.5 teaspoon)
- 1.5 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, melted
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour (if you like a little texture, you can sub about 0.75-1 cup with rolled oats)
Ingredients for the coffee cake:
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 0.75 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 0.5 teaspoon salt
- 0.75 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1.5 cups white granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1.25 cups sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
- Make the crumb topping by combining all ingredients except melted butter together in large bowl. Then, pour in the melted butter and stir until everything is well combined. Then comes the fun part. Grab small fistfuls of the topping and sort of pack them together. It’s okay if they crumble but try to get good-sized chunks. You can do this as you put them on top of the cake later on, but this process will help you get really good chunks on the cake. After you have most of the crumb topping in good chunks, set aside uncovered so they will dry out a little bit. Trust me, this will be a good thing.
- For the cake, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Stir together using a whisk or a fork and then set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter for a few minutes and then add the sugar and beat again until the mixture starts to look fluffy and all the sugar has been incorporated. You can try feeling the mixture between your fingers. Preferably you don’t want to still be able to feel the grains of sugar here.
- Add the eggs one at a time and beat the mixture until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed and then continue to mix again. Add the sour cream and vanilla, and once more beat until everything is incorporated. Then, add the dry ingredients in three parts. For this addition, please mix by hand using a spatula and make sure to scrape down the bowl after each addition. Mix until everything is combined and be careful not to overmix.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C) and butter the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch pan. You can line the pan with parchment paper if you like but just using butter is just fine for this recipe. Pour in the cake batter and scatter the crumb topping (chunks and all) over the top of the cake batter. You might think that’s a lot of topping but trust me, it is normal. This cake is about one-third topping!
- Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Rotate the pan once or twice throughout the baking process to make sure your cake is baked evenly, but if you forget (like I often do), that’s okay too. Let the cake cool a bit before serving. It will also be much easier to cut when it’s cool. Enjoy the best coffee cake!
A Dash of Yoyo 