Strawberry Crumb Cake
Strawberry Crumb Cake. Warm, with ice cream or whipped cream. This recipe is always a hit, especially when the berries are at their ripest as summer approaches.
Who can resist the sweet warmth of strawberry nectar topped with freshly baked cake batter and crumbly sugared crumbs?
Raising hand.
If you didn’t raise your hand, I can not be associated with you in any way because the guilt would be too much for me to handle.
Actually, I would be your friend in reality but I just might have bad dreams about your running on a treadmill eating nothing but carrot sticks.
This recipe is packed full of loads of strawberries so you’ll need to start with 3 pounds of strawberries, or one and a half of those giant containers. Pop or cut out the leaves and slice them up.
Dump them into a 9 x 13 baking dish.
And sprinkle a half cup of sugar over top of them sort of evenly.
Squeeze one-half of a lemon into a bowl and add a teaspoon of vanilla. Add in 2 tablespoons each of water and cornstarch and whisk it all together.
Pour it right over the strawberries and sugar.
Mix it up with a large spoon.
Set it aside for thirty minutes or while you make the cake and crumbs. The strawberries are going to release all their luscious juices while you’re working.
For the crumbs, simply take 4 tablespoons of chilled very cold butter and cut it into small cubes.
Add it into a bowl with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt and smoosh it around good with your fingers until the butter is incorporated into the dry ingredients.
When you are done it will resemble wet sand.
Set this aside also and now we’ll make the cake batter.
Toss 1 stick of butter and 1 1/4 cups of sugar into a mixer bowl.
Beat it up until it turns pale in color and gets pretty and fluffy.
Then drop in 3 large eggs one by one and mix in between each one.
Now in another mixing bowl, add in 2 1/4 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder (not soda!), and 3/4 teaspoon of salt. Whisk it up with a whisk to mix everything together really well.
Measure out 3/4 cup of buttermilk in another cup or bowl.
Turn your mixer on low. Add a third of the dry ingredients into the butter, sugar, egg mixture you’ve already beat up. Then add a third of the buttermilk. Beat it up for about 20 seconds then add another third of each. Beat 20 seconds, then add the last of each ending with the buttermilk.
Beat everything for about a minute, then turn off your mixer and get a spatula.
Remember your juicy strawberries?
Begin dolloping some of the batter in big dollops all over them and then spread it evenly over them to seal them off. DON’T lick the spatula when you’re done.
Then take your crumbs and sprinkle them right over top of the batter.
And pop it into a 350º oven for one hour and fifteen minutes.
When it’s done, remove it from the oven..
You can’t even believe the way your kitchen will smell..warm berries bubbling, cake..
Dish it up and listen here!
Vanilla bean ice cream is a MUST!
This is summer at its best…use this recipe this summer when berries are calling for their sweetness to be used…it’s wonderful!
Here’s a printable recipe for you to make things easy!
- 3 pounds strawberries, hulled and halved (8 cups)
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2½ tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 2½ tablespoons of water
- 1 t. pure vanilla extract
- ½ c. lightly packed light brown sugar
- ½ c. flour
- ¼ t. salt
- 4 T. butter, cubed and chilled
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 T. baking powder
- ¾ t.salt
- 1 stick unsalted butter, softened (1/2 cup)
- 1¼ c. sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1½ t. pure vanilla extract
- ¾ c. buttermilk
- Preheat the oven to 350°.
- In a large bowl, toss the strawberries with the sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch slurry and vanilla seeds and let stand until the berries release some of their juices, about 30 minutes. Pour the fruit filling into a 9-by-13-inch glass or ceramic baking dish set on a sturdy baking sheet.
- In a medium bowl, mix all of the ingredients with your fingers until a coarse meal forms; press into small clumps.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, using a handheld electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between additions.
- Beat in the vanilla extract and scrape down the bowl.
- Add the dry ingredients to the batter in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk.
- Spoon the batter over the fruit filling, spreading it to the edge.
- Sprinkle with the crumb topping.
- Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling, the crumb topping is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.
- Transfer to a rack to cool slightly. Serve the crumb cake warm or at room temperature.
- MAKE AHEAD The crumb cake can be refrigerated overnight. Serve warm or at room temperature.
- NOTES The fruit filling can also be made with a combination of blackberries, raspberries and blueberries. SERVE WITH Vanilla ice cream.
