Hasn’t it always been too long since your last slice of profoundly perfect crumb cake? You know, the kind that’s a hefty square with at least as much height from big brown sugar and cinnamon crumbs as from a golden, buttery, sour cream-enriched and vanilla-scented cake? Yes, me too. I didn’t expect to be back here so soon, though. I truly believed I’d finished my Crumb Cake Degree in 2021 with the still-perfect-in-every-way Big Apple Crumb Cake. But sometimes, perfection is a process.
It turns out that the Big Apple Crumb Cake, minus the apples, wasn’t exactly what I want in a New York crumb cake. This is. A few adjustments — more sour cream, a splash of water or milk, and (please, stay calm) a 25% thicker crumb layer yielded this dream square: almost comically top-heavy, the kind of thing you might gaze at in a bakery case and hope, for once, it tastes as good as it looks. I’ve tested it so many times, I’m pretty sure there’s not a family member, a teacher in my daughter’s school, or a friend on a group text chain [“Help, I made more crumb cake and need someone to collect it!”] that hasn’t tried it. And now it’s your turn.
Podcast! The third episode of my new podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, is out and it’s all about — buttermilk pancakes, including these. You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts and I’ve set up a new podcast tab/page where you can keep up on it here, too. We will have new episodes every two Mondays. We’ve been working on this behind the scenes for the last year — I hope you enjoy listening along.
Video
Previously
6 months ago: Simple Eggplant Parmesan and Chicken Rice with Buttered Onions
1 year ago: Bean and Vegetable Burritos
2 years ago: Banana Cream Pie and Simple Chicken Tortilla Soup
3 years ago: Hummingbird Cake
4 years ago: Carrot and White Bean Burgers
5 years ago: Extra-Billowy Dutch Baby Pancake
6 years ago: Sweet Potato Tacos
7 years ago: Punjabi-Style Black Lentils and Easiest French Fries
8 years ago: Churros, Nolita-Style Avocado Toast and Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart
9 years ago: Black-Bottom Oatmeal Pie and Potatoes with Soft Eggs and Bacon Vinaigrette
10 years ago: Broccoli, Cheddar, and Wild Rice Casserole and Double-Chocolate Banana Bread and Sizzling Chicken Fajitas
11 years ago: My Favorite Buttermilk Biscuits and Coconut Bread
12 years ago: Potato Knish, Two Ways
13 years ago: The Best Baked Spinach
14 years ago: Thick Chewy Granola Bars, Arroz Con Leche, and Baked Rigatoni with Tiny Meatballs
15 years ago: Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
16 years ago: Pasta with Cauliflower, Walnuts, and Feta
17 years ago: Mediterranean Eggplant and Barley Salad
New York Crumb Cake
- 10 tablespoons (140 grams) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 cup (110 grams) dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 2/3 cups (215 grams) all-purpose flour
- 6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup (120 grams) sour cream
- 2 tablespoons (30ml) water or milk
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- Powdered sugar, for dusting
Crumbs
Cake
Cake
Heat oven: To 350°F (175°C). Lightly coat an 8-inch square or 9-inch cake pan with butter or nonstick spray. For extra security, line it with parchment paper.
Make crumbs: Whisk butter, sugars, cinnamon, and salt together until evenly mixed. Add flour and mix until it disappears. It’s going to be very thick; press it evenly into the bottom of the bowl and set it aside.
Make cake: Beat butter with sugar until lightened and fluffy. Add egg, water or milk, sour cream, and vanilla and beat until combined. Sprinkle surface of batter with baking powder and salt, and beat well to combine. Add flour and mix only until it disappears.
Assemble: Scrape batter into prepared cake pan and smooth it flat. Use a spoon to loosen the crumbs from the bottom of the bowl where they’ve rested, breaking them up into big and small rubble. Sprinkle evenly over the batter.
Bake: Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake just below the crumbs comes out batter-free. Check in a few spots, in case it has baked unevenly.
Cool to lukewarm, if you can bear it, before dusting it generously with powdered sugar and cutting the cake into squares or wedges.
Do ahead: This cake keeps in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 to 4 days, but I like it best in the first two.
Your timing is impeccable. My inlaws, including my Brooklyn-born-and-raised MiL, are coming to town in a few days and I know they will be all over this.
Is there a way to make the batter ahead and bake first thing in the morning? Or should I just bake it the night before and gently toast pieces to slightly warm in the morning?
Thank you!
I didn’t test resting the batter — my biggest concern is that it won’t get as much rise. But if you want to try it, I’d keep the batter and crumbs separate in the fridge until you bake it, just so they don’t sink in or soften too much. Let us know how it goes!
Thanks! Yeah, I was hoping that it might work to rest the batter given that it uses baking powder rather than soda, but it’ll probably lose some of the leavening power. I might just make it for the afternoon they arrive and we can toast up leftovers for breakfast the next morning. Or I’ll do a mise en place the night before and get up early to bake it…
Update: I ended up doing the prep last night, had my husband take the cold ingredients out of the fridge to warm up when he got up (he gets up earlier than I do), and baked everything this morning. It came together quickly and baked to perfection in 30 minutes in our toaster oven at 350 (regular oven was cooking bacon). Everyone from the inlaws to the toddler loved it! I will definitely be making it again. Thank you for sharing!
i’ve gotten really into prepping my baking in stages due to health and energy issues. this is how i would (and probably will) do this:
(it’s never hot where i live so i’d leave the butter mixtures out on the counter, but you could refrigerate it)
night before:
for the crumbs
– measure & mix everything but flour & cover the bowl
– measure flour into a container with a lid
for the cake
– mix up butter & sugar & cover the bowl
– measure out the dry ingredients into a container & cover
– measure & mix sour cream, vanilla, & milk/water & store in fridge
– prep pan for baking
in the morning:
– when i first wake up take butter mixtures out of the fridge (if you stored them there overnight)
– when i’m ready to bake, i would turn on the oven
– add flour to the crumbs mixture
– rewhip the butter sugar to get it a little fluffy, should take way less time
– add egg & sour cream mixture
– whisk together dry ingredients & add to mixture
– assemble & bake
it may sound like you’re not saving much time but having to pull out ingredients, put them away, clean up from measuring, prepping the pan all takes time! plus i don’t have to be 100% awake if everything is all measured and prepped!
Can we use Greek yogurt in place of sour cream?!
This looks amazing. I love your crumb cakes.
Yes, will work fine.
How do you feel about this cake vs. the yeasted smeteneh kuchen in Smitten Kitchen Every Day?
Different! If you love a yeasted cake, stick with it. But this is closer to what you’d find in a bakery in NY or NJ (but, actually good!).
Very respectfully disagree. Traditional New Jersey crumbcakes like B &W in Hackensack and Styretown in Clifton are yeasted cake versions. Growing up in Northern Jersey – our local bakery had crumb buns which had more cake than crumb, and crumb cake, which had the boulder size crumbs on a thin layer of cake. Both liberally coated with confectioners sugar. My personal opinion is that the yeasted cake holds to up the larger crumbs, has a less dense texture and is also less sweet so the crumbs shine. But of course, I will bake and eat any style cake with crumbs!
The recipe doesn’t currently say what to do with the 2tbsp water/milk. I assume it should be mixed in with the sour cream + egg + vanilla?
Whoops — now fixed! (Yes, with the sour cream etc.)
Wow, that was quick :-). (Looks like a very tasty cake.)
… Oh, while we’re on trivial errors, you’ve got a “with with” that wants deduplicating.
Thanks, will fix.
I want to try this but the Big Apple Crumb Cake has my heart forever.
They’ve very similar but I found that without fruit, the crumb wasn’t as tall as I’d like and it needs more moisture to make up for the juices lost. I’d still use that formula when I want to add fruit.
This is outrageously good. I love the fact that I can make any of your recipes and have confidence that it’s going to be absolutely perfect. Thanks for testing (and re-testing!!) everything prior to sharing with us – it takes a lot of pressure off of me when I’m sharing with coworkers or guests!
Can I add blueberries?? This almost looks perfect especially since you had a previous blueberry crumb cake recipe. Wanted to make use of some frozen blueberries in the freezer. Thank you!
If you’d like to add fruit, I’d use the Big Apple Crumb Cake with blueberries instead — the moisture and crumb is adjusted for it. There’s also a Blueberry Crumb Cake in the archives that’s wonderful, but has a thinner streusel, not this classic thick crumb.
Thank you for the quick reply Deb!!
I bet I have time to throw this together during lunch…
Made it! Had to use storebought buttermilk since I am inexplicably out of sour cream. It made the batter a bit runnier at first (suspect this wouldn’t be the case if I’d used buttermilk from my ‘forever buttermilk’ jar which is significantly thicker) but the cake still baked up beautifully.
And the CRUMBS. Are they even allowed to be called crumbs when they are big fat chunks of naughty granola???
forever buttermilk jar? Please tell! Do you keep adding to it and simply keep it in the fridge?
Oh, yes! Want to hear about that buttermilk jar too!
Literally about 2 minutes before I popped over here I was saying how long it’s been since I’ve had a good slice of NY-style coffee cake (was raised there, now live elsewhere). I came over here to reference your original coffee cake recipe for a good crumb:cake ratio and thought I was hallucinating when I saw this post. Absolutely delighted!
Also just wanted to add that I’ve been following smitten kitchen for over a decade now, and it’s always so cozy here.
We have been using the Big Crumb Coffee cake without the rhubarb as a weekend breakfast favorite. We like the ginger zing in that one, but in the interest of science, I need to try all the coffee cakes! In that recipe there was a comment by John (back when comments were numbered I think it was referenced in the recipe) that gave the reasoning for the strict sequence of crumb preparation. Is that still applicable here?
“One explanation for the crumbs not mixing properly at the stated proportions is adding the flour too soon. By whisking the sugar and butter to the point where the sugar has fully dissolved, the fat and water content of the butter are then available to coat the flour (with the added benefit that the dissolved sugar inhibits gluten formation once the flour is added). To test the problem, I tried combining the butter with the sugar and flour simultaneously, and sure enough, it resulted in a sandy mess. But for a batch where the sugar was fully dissolved into the melted butter first, there was easily enough moisture to then incorporate 1 3/4 c flour.”
I could not explain it this scientifically, but yes, basically what I do here and with the Big Apple Crumb Cake. Whisking the butter and sugars liquefies them and makes it easier to mix the flour in. That Big Crumb Rhubarb Coffee Cake in the archives is adapted from Cook’s Illustrated and Melissa Clark and it has a heavier amount of flour than my others; I know it could be hard to get it all in and the crumbs were a tiny bit tougher than these. But it was also designed with cake flour in mind, which is silkier.
what I cannot find since I moved from Queens in 1979 are real crumb buns. The bakeries in upstate NY carry what they call crumb buns, but they are just yellow cake with crumbs on top. Real crumb buns are not cake, they are more like the consistency of a Danish. I’m not a baker but probably made with yeast? If you know of any bakery that still makes them like that, I would love to know.
Might it be yeasted? If so, I’d check out my yeasted crumb cake in my second cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Every Day. It’s called the Smeteneh Kuchen and it’s modeled more on the yeasted crumb buns from Germany — with a twist.
That name is such a perfect match for your blog/book title. The Smitten Kitchen Smeteneh Kuchen!
(I assume that when you originally picked the title you weren’t at all thinking about sour cream. But maybe that was secretly the joke all along?)
Yes, I had fun with the cake title. But no, no thoughts of sour cream when I launched this site. :)
Hi Deb, what brand of all purpose flour did you use when developing your recipes?
I have both unbleached gold medal and KAF. I would love to make this great-looking crumb cake and wanted to make sure that I use the right brand. Love your cookbooks and your podcast!
Those are my two brands too! I’ve mostly used Gold Medal in the last few years since my grocery stores declared KAF a gold-tier luxury item.
At the school I work at, we have a staff potluck breakfast once a month. I would love to bring these this month as individual muffins. Any tips or things I should be aware other than the obvious adjustments to baking times? Thank you!
It should work well and they’ll bake fast. Just keep in mind that it won’t have a traditional muffin proportion — this is half crumb, half cake. You can increase the cake batter volume if you want it less 1:1.
Thank you!!!
For a starting point for conversions, I’ve been asking ChatGPT
Any change in oven temperature if baking in a glass pan? Thanks!
Sometimes with glass it can help to bake it at a 25-degree lower temperature for longer.
I love the version with rhubarb but my crumb topping completely sinks into the cake. Does this ever happen to anyone else? I’d love to know how to prevent this.
Try the Big Apple Crumb Cake but with rhubarb instead. It holds up better.
Hi, thank you for adding grams and degrees in Celcius ;-)
I have a similar recipe in the notebook my mum left me.
We are Italian, originally from the North, and she would made this exact cake but using ricotta instead of the sour cream and mix some crushed amaretti in the filling. Then, she would be mixing amaretti in the crumb as well.
I grew up with those flavours and textures and you inspired me to recreate it.
Holy moly this is incredible. I made it last night and it won’t last the rest of the day. It’s simply perfect. I’m so grateful to have this recipe in my life now!!
OMG. I need to make this immediately. Stand by …
Gimme ALLLLLL the crumb cake and no one will get hurt!
Thank you! I lived in NYC for 30 years, and left for the midwest 32 years ago, and so very much miss New York Crumb Cake. Thank you so much!
Can I use regular whole milk yogurt in place of sour cream?
Whoops! Follow up question…I have light brown and coconut sugar not dark brown. Could those work for the crumble. At home with a newborn and hoping to avoid an extra grocery run. Thanks!
Yes
Made this today, as soon as you posted it! When I got to the center of the cake, it was undercooked. I bake frequently, and your temperature/time is always spot on for me and my oven. I cooked it the 35 minutes. Edges were just right. Afraid if I cook it for longer, the edges will get dried out. Any thoughts? TY!!
If it was just slightly underbaked, it might have just needed 5 minutes more, which wouldn’t change much. The cake is very moist and gets a little extra buttery from the topping. If it was very dark, you could bake it at 325 instead for longer.
Mine turned out undercooked too. I used a 9 in cake tin and followed directions but my middle would not set.
This takes me back to the heavenly crumb buns we got every Sunday at the Jersey Shore from Mueller’s Bakery in Bay Head. We would patiently wait in a long line after mass and come home with bags full of crumb buns and crullers. We would carefully scrutinize the crumb cake and try to get the piece with the biggest crumbs. I am going to have to try your recipe to see how it compares to my memories of this childhood treat. Your recipe looks so much like what I recall devouring.
What the, how did you know I was just looking at the Entenmann’s website for nostalgic inspo
Do you prefer an 8 inch or a 9 inch pan? Thanks!
An 8-inch square and 9-inch round have almost exactly the same base area, so the cakes will be the same height. I usually bake this as a square, though. I cut it into 16 small squares, as shown here.
I just made this and it is OUTRAGEOUSLY delicious. I gasped when I took my first bite. Going to be in my forever collection, along with your perfect blueberry muffins and your garlic mushrooms and your bolognese and so many other incredible recipes you have given us, Deb! Thank you!
Anything special to note if I want to double this and make it in a 9×13 pan?
You should double it, but the baking time won’t be doubled.
I went in an independent donut place the other day ( in Massachusetts) and they had pieces of crumb cake for $4.00 a piece. I told myself I could make better…and here’s your recipe! I grew up in New Jersey and am used to great crumb cake. I know what I’ll be making tomorrow!
Thank you for what I’m sure will be the crumb cake of my childhood. I’m going to bake this tomorrow for my father-in-law’s unveiling on sunday. i’m sure it will be the perfect sweet bite to eat as a symbol of moving on from a year of mourning.
First time in a while I have read a recipe post and thought “I need to make this now”. Made it, love it, ate too much because I couldn’t stop. Thanks, Deb!
In reference to the pancake podcast, I have to say that I laughed out loud at Deb’s comment that asking Kenji if he knows X “is like asking a Muppet if it can count.” (Cue image in my head of any of a number of Muppets counting.)
And there was great cooking information as well, but I think that I am going to have to add that phrase to my life. Deb, you make my life better every day.
Thank you. Someone mentioned this on Twitter, too! https://twitter.com/debperelman/status/1776417994970730619
This recipe is delicious. I added a thick layer of raspberry jam between the cake and crumb layer. Will 100% be making again.
The jam layer sounds delicious and totally worth trying. Thanks for the suggestion.
What a wonderful suggestion, thanks!
I tried a thin layer of raspberry jam and it was wonderful. Thanks for the great idea!
This was delicious. The best crumb cake recipe I’ve made, beating my currently bookmarked ones by a country (or should that be New York city?) mile. The cake is perfectly moist, soft but sturdy, and faintly vanilla scented. Unlike other crumb cake recipes I’ve tried, this one hits exactly the right crumb-to-crust ratio. It seemed slightly overwhelming when I was shaking the crumbs over the batter in the pan, but I never doubted Deb. I’ve emigrated from America many years ago, but I made this today and my family disappeared it within an hour. I’ll have to make another one for breakfast tomorrow!
This comment doesn’t relate to your wonderful-sounding crumb cake recipe, but to the list of favorite words that you compiled and linked to your last newsletter. Thank you. I wrote down all of the words and am having such fun working on ten of them a day. First I think about everything I already know about the word. Then I look up and write out its formal definition, how it’s pronounced, and where it was derived from. I’ve learned so many interesting tidbits and made so many new connections.
Oh my gosh! So good! Followed the recipe exactly! Made it in a round 9 inch pan. Promptly ate 1/6 of it with a fork before my family realized it was even out of the oven!
Hi! Wondering if this can be made into muffin crumb cakes? Baking time adjustment? Other considerations?
I made this today, and had to use cake flour in the crumbs, worked fine. Serves 12-16? Ha ha! I’ve already eaten 3.5 pieces. So delicious!
Experienced baker, made as instructed. Crumb topping was delicious, but cake bottom was surprisingly tough (and I did not overmix). Sadly, this one missed the mark.
Hi, Eva. I am surprised when the majority of the comments are positive, to the point of maybe best ever crumb cake, and since you were disappointed, it has to be the recipe’s fault! Even experienced bakers can have an occasional less than perfect experience, for many reasons. (Age of flour, slight mis-measurement, variation in oven temperature, etc.) Your tone seems to imply the recipe itself is a dud, but maybe try again. This truly is delicious and worth making and sharing with love.
Truly delicious – moist and fragrant and praised by the whole pre-Eclipse Day dinner party from kids to crumb cake skeptics. It took about 38 minutes to fully bake in my oven. Next time I would skip the parchment because it slid all around while I was trying to spoon in the thick cake batter. I felt like it would be fine to serve directly from the pan (I used a square Pyrex dish). Thank you, Deb, for making me look good once again.
This was absolutely amazingly delicious! It reminded me so much of eating crumb cake at my nana’s in Queens when I was young.
The day after making this I was at a brunch where someone brought bakery crumb cake and it couldn’t hold a candle to this recipe. The crumb topping was hard and brittle. Thank you!!
Should you need a Cake To Console Kids Disappointed By a
A Cloudy Eclipse Day, I cannot recommend this highly enough. Followed instructions to the letter, baked for 30 minutes, watched delightedly as family devoured every morsel and crumb. Thanks, Deb!
Deb,
This was AMAZING. So easy too! Thanks for a great recipe!
I made this last night and it is supremely delicious! I was able to make it in one bowl- I assembled the cake, put the batter in a pan and then used the same bowl to make the crumble. I will 100% be making this again!
I’ve been following and making your recipes for years, but this is the first time I’ve left a review. This cake is so easy to make and so, so, so delicious. I’m very picky about the types of desserts I like, and this one is right up my alley. In fact, I’d say it’s perfect. Thank you so much, Deb!
It’s been years since I’ve had a slice — this is now on my list for the weekend. Thanks for sharing!
Great recipe! Looks really delicious but simple enough to make. I love cakes but I am not a good baker!
Do you think I could make this as muffins?
Hello! This looks amazing and I’m excited to bring it to a breakfast soon. Do you have any suggestions/thoughts about how to make this without the egg (working with an allergy over here). Given the presence of the sour cream, milk/water, and baking powder, it seems like I could increase all three a bit by weight to make up for the lost liquid and fat and skip the egg to get a similar-but-not-exactly-the-same cake crumb. Do you have a standard thing you would substitute instead of an egg?
Update: I skipped the egg and made it with 145 g sour cream, 45 g milk, 1.5 tsp’s baking powder, everything else as writ above. Looks to be a lovely soft crumb, and I’m finding it VERY HARD not to pick all the crumb off the top. Thanks for the great recipe!
I just made this and followed the recipe 99% (I only had non-fat sour cream available – only change, not a big deal)…it was a HUGE hit.
I took it out after 30′ as the toothpicks were clean…the edges were perfectly done, but the middle could maybe have benefited from another minute…not critical though.
Great work, as always Deb! Thank you for this gem!
This cake is outrageous. I doubled the cake portion and 1.5x the crumb topping and it was the perfect proportion for a 13×9 pan baked for 30 min. That said, this cake doesn’t even need the crumb topping – the texture, the softness…it’s almost velvety. Next time I make this I won’t even bother with the topping; the cake alone is that good.
I doubled the recipe and baked in a 9×13 for a church gathering. It came out just a little underdone but after I followed Deb’s advice from a different comment (lowered the temp to 325 and cooked for 10 more minutes), it was perfect. Everybody loved the cake! Thank you!
This was scrumptious, and I enjoyed making it. The crumbs felt kind of like play-doh, which was fun. I might follow the lead of the other commenters and slightly increase the proportion of cake to crumbs. I could also imagine making these in pretty tulip muffin liners, which would be gorgeous. Thank you for the inspiration!
This was amazing – made it last night for dessert and eating it now for breakfast. My husband went for a second piece – that hasn’t happened in a long time for something that wasn’t chocolate! Flavorful but a simple recipe with ingredients I had on hand. *Finally* a coffee cake that wasn’t dry! I added a little almond extract to the cake batter too.
Also, I have to say Deb, I enjoy the way your website is set up. The ads aren’t covering the pictures, the features (like skip to recipe, print) are subtle but easy to find, and I love the “made it” and “question” sections in the comments!
A quick mental scan and I realized I had everything. (well except for the sour cream, I had to substitute half with greek yogurt). I also had some toasted pecan bits that i threw into the topping.
OMG, trying real hard not to eat the whole thing while it’s still warm.
I never comment, but making this for the second time in three days! My whole family inhaled it in less than 24 hours. Used full fat Greek yogurt instead of sour cream because it’s what I had.
Made this morning as an “I love you” for my almost 18 year old. It’s now almost gone. This is so incredibly moist and delicious, and a new favorite!
Made today and it came out great! Looks just like Deb’s. I only had salted butter on hand so used that and decreased the salt a tiny bit otherwise. The cake part is so nicely buttery. Don’t be afraid to really break up the crumbs–mine wanted to stay in giant pieces, but the pieces with smaller crumbs are a little easier to eat. Can’t wait to share with my class tomorrow.
So, I was rushing (as always) through this, and weighing the crumbs and cake at the same time. It came together quickly and I was feeling very good until discovering I put in the crumb amount of flour for the cake, and then crumbs as well, so almost double the flour for the cake. I baked it anyways, and it shockingly still tastes good (cake a bit dense but doesn’t look wrong at all)! Kids and I are happily making our way through, and now I’m especially eager to try next time with the correct amount of flour! Thanks for a forgiving recipe even with this massive mess up!
Hello! I made this for a crumb cake aficionado friend, and although she thought the flavor was good, she felt that the crumb topping was a little dry, verging on powdery. I weighed all the ingredients, so I don’t think this was a “too much flour” type of error. If I want to try again, would it make sense to add another Tbsp or two of butter? Thanks!
You could drop back the flour 1 to 2 tablespoons for a softer crumb.
Update: I followed your suggestion and have now made this cake twice, reducing the flour in the crumbs a bit. The verdict? My picky crumb cake fan says it is perfect now! Thank you!
Delicious!! The Platonic ideal of crumb cakes (as informed by a Long Island childhood in the 80’s). Only made a few changes: I’m at high altitude so I reduced the sugar in both cake and crumb by 20 g and added 1T water to the crumbs and 1T extra milk to the cake.
I used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and baked it for about 28 minutes.
Next time I’ll increase the salt a smidge in both cake and crumbs.
Hi Deb! Huge fan of your recipes, and this cake is awesome! I do have one question – I’ve made this 4 times (two plain, one with a layer of raspberry jam, and another with a layer of jam and cheese – all incredible!). I did have to bake the ones with jam and cheese longer at 325 to get them baked through, but even with the plain ones, my crumbs got a little more crunchy than I’m used to with crumb cakes. I’m from NJ, and have eaten a ton of crumb cakes and they usually have softer, crumbly crumbs whereas these are a little more crispy for me. Any idea how to get the crumbs a little softer? Either way, they taste amazing!
I have made this recipe exactly as written to rave reviews.
Last week, I was short of the brown sugar and made up the difference with demerara sugar. Winner! I replaced about 50 grams of brown sugar with the demerera. Than you for a delicious, easy, and quick treat.
Amazing Crumb cake recipe! I didn’t have sour cream and used plain yogurt as a sub.
Not only is this the apex of all crumb cakes (perfectly moist and plush cake, delicious crumb topping), but the cake part is the ultimate yellow/vanilla cake I’ve been searching for since I started baking, for layer cakes. I’m wondering if doubling the cake recipe and baking the layers in an 8 or 9-inch round cake pan for 25 to 30 minutes will get me the cake of my dreams?
All that said, make this crumb cake! You will love it and everyone will rave!
Lisa–I agree, the cake on its own is wonderful.
I’ve made this recipe three times since posted. I’m really supposed to be eating vegetables, lean proteins and avoiding sweets, but this recipe has been so perfect that I keep wanting to go back and have it again. I don’t have to wonder how I got this “girlish” figure in the first place…
If I were to share I know people would rave.
Zabars makes the only crumb cake I will eat. Yes, I’m a crumb cake snob. Three fourths crumb, and one fourth cake. Devine. And under $5 a piece to boot!
Exactly what I’m looking for in a coffee cake! Made exactly to the letter and would change nothing. Perfection 🧑🍳💋
This deliciously tasty and simple quick bake has become my gifting occasion cake. Everyone loves the flavor, 8×8 size and cozy with java/tea snack. SK you make me look good to all my peeps!
I’ve made many crumb cakes, including yours with rhubarb. This recipe is exceptional. We ate it after it cooled just enough, and it was incredible- somehow creamy and tangy and delicious. Thank you!
Have followed your site for years! thank you for helping my bake and cook for decades!
question: I had a NYC roommate who turned me on to NYC crumb cakes. My god. I was hooked. I was wondering if you had ever tried to make it pumpkin for fall? if not, what are your thoughts?
thank you again
How do you think this would work with the rhubarb from rhubarb coffee cake recipe
Thank you
If you want to make a crumb cake with fruit, I’d recommend the rhubarb big crumb coffee cake or the big apple crumb cake, just swapping rhubarb. Both are written to adjust for the extra moisture the fruit adds.
I’d give this 10 stars if possible. It’s *the* crumb cake – the only one you’ll every need to make.
I found this recipe easy and delicious. I doubled it, 9 X 13 USA pan, 56 minutes at 335°. One Tip: When I was making the crumb mixture, looking back and forth, it was easy to get confused and look at the cake ingredients so, when I typed up the double recipe, I made one page for Crumb ingredients, another page for Cake ingredients.
Is a 2″ height cake pan OK for this recipe? Some of the crumb recipes on the internet look pretty tall and I’m worried about an overflow.
2″ is fine