Home and Family: Coffee Crumb Cake

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted all week!! Things have been CRAZY over here. Let's see, first back up to last Friday evening when our air conditioner decided to stop working. Yes, it was in the 90s outside and a cool 84 degrees inside the house all weekend. Needless to say, there was no DIYing taking place. We finally got it fixed Monday afternoon and it took about 4 hours of the AC running continuously for the house to cool down.

Then, Tuesday morning, while at a staff meeting at work, I was standing up in the back of the room and all of a sudden felt really light headed and dizzy. By the time I got to my office, I could barely see and was about to pass out. Thank goodness, someone happened to see me and realized I wasn't ok. I ended up being taken to the ER with a severe case of dehydration. Yikes!

So now it's Thursday and I figured I'd share a delicious recipe with you that you can make for any Father's Day celebrations that you have planned. I found this recipe on Pinterest and it immediately reminded me of the Entemann's cake that I used to eat growing up. I modified the original recipe to make it non-dairy (hubby is lactose intolerant) and I (and my family) think it it came out scrumptious!

Here's the recipe, as I made it with my modifications. If you do make the cake, please be sure to credit Tara as well.

New York-Style Crumb Cake
source: Cooks’ Illustrated free iPhone app and Cooks’ Illustrated May 2007

Don’t be tempted to substitute all-purpose flour for the cake flour, as doing so will make a dry, tough cake. If you can’t find buttermilk, you can substitute an equal amount of plain, low-fat yogurt. When topping the cake, take care to not push the crumbs into the batter. This recipe can be easily doubled and baked in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish. If doubling, increase the baking time to about 45 minutes. Cooled leftovers can be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.

For the Crumb Topping:
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted margarine, melted and still warm
1 3/4 cups cake flour

Whisk sugars, cinnamon, salt, and margarine in medium bowl to combine. Add flour and stir with rubber spatula until mixture resembles thick, cohesive dough; set aside to cool to room temperature while you make the batter.

This should be the consistency when it's all mixed.

For the Cake:
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted margarine, cut into 6 tablespoon-size pieces, softened but still cool
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup soy milk
(1/3 teaspoon lemon juice - optional*)

Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

*The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of buttermilk. Since I wanted to make this recipe non-dairy, I researched non-dairy substitutes for buttermilk, only to find that there wasn't much out there. The closest I found was to add lemon juice or vinegar to soy milk so that's what I did. I asked my dad about it since he's more of a science guy than I am and he informed me that since soy milk doesn't have the same lactic acid that regular milk has, adding the lemon juice to it wouldn't really have the same chemical reaction that it would have if I added it to cow's milk. He didn't feel like it was necessary to add the lemon juice to the soy milk altogether, but I figured I'd throw it out here for you to decide. Food for thought. (Pun intended, ha!)

Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Cut 16-inch length parchment paper or aluminum foil and fold lengthwise to 7-inch width. Spray 8-inch square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray and fit parchment into dish, pushing it into corners and up sides; allow excess to overhang edges of dish.

In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment (I used a hand mixer because I was too lazy to take out the stand mixer), mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt on low speed to combine. With mixer running at low speed, add margarine one piece at a time; continue beating until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no visible butter chunks remaining, 1 to 2 minutes. Add egg, yolk, vanilla, and soy milk mixture; beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute, scraping once if necessary.

Transfer batter to baking pan; using rubber spatula, spread batter into even layer.

Break apart crumb topping into large pea-sized pieces between your thumb, pointer, and middle fingers and spread in even layer over batter, beginning with edges and then working toward center. (Look how much crumb topping there is - yum!)

Bake until crumbs are golden and toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack at least 30 minutes. Remove cake from pan by lifting parchment overhang.