Club: BAKED - New York Style Crumb Cake

Want to see my new favorite cookbook? I know, hard to believe I have a favorite among hundreds the few I own but this one really is great! It is called Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, owners of a very yummy Brooklyn bakery. Club: BAKED is a new blog club I joined and we will be cooking our way through this cookbook together. This recipe is the first EVER that we are blogging about so keep your eyes peeled for two recipes a month from me just out of this cookbook alone. According to the rules of the group, I cannot post the actual recipe here, but our lovely host Karen of Karen's Cookies Cakes & More, has posted it on her blog.

Overall, I would definitely make this recipe again. Being from New York, I grew up having crumb cake at tons of family parties. It is not only a great dessert option, but makes a delicious breakfast as well! This recipe calls for your standard baking ingredients and there are fairly straight-forward instructions. The crumb topping was very THICK when I combined all the ingredients for it. It was very important to let it sit and "dry out" while putting the rest of the cake ingredients together. Don't be too alarmed when you find out how much butter, sour cream and sugar is in this recipe either. It's all in good fun.

A well-made crumb cake should have a ridiculous and obscenely large ratio of crumb topping to cake.

Many of the other bakers who made this recipe cut it in half, but not me! I do not let desserts go to waste. I have an amazing team that I work with who are always begging for snacks so I either bring it in to them or share with family and friends. That is what makes cooking and baking worth it, right?

I baked this for 60 minutes total but I should have taken it out after only 55.

My bad.

The sides were a little browner than I would have liked. I'm not sure if that also has to do with why some of the crumbs didn't stick to the topping as well as they should have. Whoops! Regardless, it was absolutely delicious. Not the same as Grandma's crumb cake though. She used to make the BEST crumb cake (among other things) in her hay-day. We have her recipe written down but I'm not exactly sure it is correct - she liked to trick us like that. Now we can never make things as great as she did!

I miss you Grandma.

Oh and of course for everyone else, Tutti Mangia!

Head on over to Club: BAKED to read about some of the other bakers experiences. There's been great reviews all-around. Our next recipe will be Farm Stand Buttermilk Donuts on July 15th.