Coffee, Cake, and Composition: Coffee Crumb Cake with Walnuts

Does anyone remember the Hostess Coffee Crumb Cake muffins? I’ve been trying to recreate these babies for ages and could never find a recipe that even came close. Until NOW. Actually, I think this recipe is better because it has a nicer consistency and is super moist—the Hostess muffin could be a bit too crumbly/dry, in my opinion anyway.

Anyway, the original recipe is from Food Wishes, and he even has a youtube video outlining each step. I slightly altered the recipe by using yogurt and walnuts, instead of sour cream and pecans, and I also doubled the recipe so that it fit in my pan.

Walnut Coffee Crumb Cake

I used a 9.5 x 13.5 inch baking pan

Ingredients

For the crumb:

2/3 cup, 133g Sugar

2 tsp Cinnamon

2/3 cup, 133g Brown Sugar, packed

3 cups, 375g Walnuts, finely chopped

6 tbsp, 85g Unsalted Butter, melted

1/4 tsp Salt

For the cake:

1 cup, 226g Unsalted Butter, room temperature

2 cups, 500g Sugar

4 large Eggs, room temperature

3 tsp Vanilla

2 cups, 490g Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream, room temperature

3 ¾ cups, 468g Flour

1 tsp Salt

1 ½ tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Baking Powder

Method:

1. To prepare the crumb: combine sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar, crushed walnuts, and salt. Then add the melted butter and mix thoroughly.

2. Preheat the oven to 175C/350F, and grease your baking pan.

3. To prepare the cake: In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add eggs one at a time, making sure to incorporate each egg into the butter/sugar mixture thoroughly. It may look like the mixture isn’t coming together at first, but if you continue to whisk it will come together.

4. Add the vanilla and yogurt and mix until combined.

5. In another bowl, sift together the flour, leavening agents, and salt. Then using a whisk, combine the dry (flour, leavening agents, salt) and wet (butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, yogurt) ingredients until the batter is uniform. DO NOT OVERMIX

6. To assemble the cake: Spoon out half of the batter and evenly spread it out in the bottom of the baking pan. Then spoon out half of your crumb mixture and distribute it evenly over the batter. Spoon out the remaining batter over that, making sure to spread it out evenly over the crumb (I used a palette knife for this). Lastly, spread the remaining crumb mixture over the top of the cake. If you prefer your cake to only have one layer of sponge and one layer of crumb, then just pour all your batter in the pan and evenly distribute the crumb over that.