Mile-High Apple Pie with Tart Cherries and Spicy Crumb Topping

It’s October, and October means the harvest, the harvest means apples, and apples mean apple pie! I got the urge to make one the other day, putting my own special spin on it (as I do), and it is delicious. Loaded with tart Granny Smith apples, offset with the tangy sweetness of dried tart cherries, with a crumb topping spiced up with a tiny bit of heat from Melissa’s Hatch Chile Pecans. This will satisfy whatever craving you happen to be having at the moment.

Mile-High Apple Pie

with Tart Cherries and Spicy Crumb Topping

 4 lbs. Melissa’s Granny Smith apples
1 3-oz. pkg. Melissa’s dried tart cherries
1 lemon, zested
2 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 T. bourbon
½ c. granulated sugar
½ c. flour
1 t. kosher salt
¾ t. ground cinnamon
½ t. freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 t. ground allspice
1/8 t. ground cloves
1 pie crust
1 recipe Spicy Crumb Topping (below)

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Core, peel, and slice apples. (I use this apple corer/slicer, and then cut each slice in half.)

In a large bowl, combine apples, cherries, orange zest and juice, bourbon, sugar, flour, salt, and spices. Toss together to coat.

Fill whatever pie crust you have chosen to use (homemade or purchased, I don’t judge) with the apple mixture.  Place the pie on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and mound on the crumb topping. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes until the juices bubble out. Midway through the baking process, cover the top of the pie with a sheet of foil to keep from getting too dark.

Serve pie warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Spicy Crumb Topping

1 cup flour
½ c. brown sugar
¼ c. Melissa’s Green Hatch Chile Pecans
½ c. (1 stick) butter, cold, cubed

In the work bowl of food processor pulse together flour, brown sugar, and pecans until thoroughly combined. Add butter all at once, and pulse until it forms a crumbly mixture about the size of peas.

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Pumpkin Crumb Muffins

Who doesn't love a delicious pumpkin muffin at the onset of fall? And, who doesn't love a delicious pumpkin muffin with crumb topping? You could pretty much top anything with crumb topping and I would be fully on board. Not only is this muffin, from Chris Scheuer at The Café Sucre Farine delicious, but it's easy to make as well. I'm not a baker, as I’ve said many times, one of the reasons is because, honestly, I hate dragging out that big stand mixer. This recipe saved me from that, requiring only a couple of bowls, a whisk, and a spoon, and I liked that.

I whipped these up in the morning while the coffee was brewing, and enjoyed the fragrance while they baked. Spread with pumpkin spice butter, they were absolute heaven. If you are the pumpkin spice nut that I am, you are really going to enjoy these. Consider also topping them with a slathering of Pumpkin Cream Cheese. Fall is the time when we embrace pumpkin, and you're going to want to start right here.

Pumpkin Crumb Muffins

From The Café Sucre Farine

For the muffin batter:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 cup pumpkin purée

¼ cup milk

⅓ cup melted butter

2 large eggs beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

For the crumb topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup brown sugar packed

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

⅛ teaspoon salt

7 tablespoons butter melted

Preheat oven to 400˚F. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with baking spray or line with paper cupcake liners.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice in a medium size bowl. Set aside.

Combine the pumpkin puree, milk, melted butter, eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl and mix well.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add the pumpkin mixture and stir, just until flour disappears. Scoop mixture into prepared pan.

For the crumb topping, combine flour, sugars, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Stir to combine. Add melted butter and stir with a fork until large crumbs form.

Divide crumb mixture between muffins pressing lightly on top of each as you go.

Place in oven and immediately reduce temperature to 350˚F. Bake for 20 minutes, then cover lightly with foil and bake another 5-7 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Shower with powdered sugar when completely cool, if desired.

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Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake Three Ways

Happy first day of fall!  With the coming season I’ve been experimenting with pumpkin coffeecake recipes.  Unsure whether I preferred a crumb topping to a streusel topping, I took a survey of family and friends to see which was the most popular.  After months of research (okay, two days, if you must know), it was a tie.  It seemed both toppings were equally loved.  Huh, I thought to myself.  Maybe I can come up with a recipe that uses both.  And I did.  This scrumptiously delicious coffee cake employs the use of both crumb and streusel toppings…or not.  Have it your way as they used to say in the commercials of a popular burger chain.  I made it with the streusel topping as a filling and topped it with crumbs.  But you can just use the crumbs, or just use the streusel, or break up the streusel and use half as a filling and the other half on top.  Can you say versatile?  It’s simply delicious, any way you slice it.

Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake Three Ways

STREUSEL TOPPING/FILLING

¼ cup flour

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

¼ cup chopped pecans

CRUMB TOPPING

2 cups flour

2 sticks butter, softened

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon vanilla

COFFEECAKE

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 cup pumpkin puree

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor*

Preheat oven to 350°F Spray a 9” x 9” square cake pan with Pam.  Line pan with parchment paper, leaving 2 extra inches overhanging the sides.  Spray parchment paper with Pam.

FOR STREUSEL TOPPING/FILLING:

Place all ingredients into the work bowl of a food processor; pulse until crumbly.

CRUMB TOPPING:

Mix all ingredients together until crumbly:

FOR COFFEECAKE:

Combine flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter and sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin, vanilla extract, and Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor (if using). Gradually beat in flour mixture.

OPTION #1 – STREUSEL TOPPED COFFEECAKE

Spoon batter into prepared cake pan. Sprinkle Streusel Topping over batter. BAKE for 45 to 50 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.

OPTION #2 – CRUMB TOPPED COFFEECAKE

Spoon batter into prepared cake pan. Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove pan from oven and cover top completely with crumb mixture.  Return to oven and bake an addition 35-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.

OPTION #3 – CRUMB TOPPED COFFEECAKE with FILLING (Pictured)

Spoon half of the batter into prepared cake pan.  Top batter with filling (streusel).  Cover filling with remaining batter.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and sprinkle the crumb mixture over cake.  Return to oven and bake an additional 35-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.  Sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.

 *If you don’t have this (and what a shame if you didn’t), just use 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring.

Forget the Cake Crumb Cake Cookies

If you like crumb cake as much as I do then you'll have to admit that it's really more about the crumbs than it is the cake. The cake, generally an inch or so of dreadfully dry yellow cake (New Jersey Coffee Cake being one exception), is the price we have to pay for that thick layer of flavorful, crunchy crumbs. Well, suffer no more, I've come up with a solution! Cookies made of crumb topping so you can get what you want when you want.  Amazingly easy and with only a handful of ingredients, you can be a bit reckless when making them to give them the rustic look of a crumb topping.


Try them for yourself and see if you don't agree that these quite happily satisfy that crumb cake craving, in an acceptable form.  Excellent with morning coffee or afternoon tea.


Forget the Cake Crumb Cake Cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 sticks of butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place all ingredients into a medium mixing bowl and beat together until well blended and large crumbs start to form.  

Using your hands grab walnut-sized pieces of dough and place it rather haphazardly onto an ungreased baking sheet.  These should look unformed and rustic, like the crumb topping on a crumb cake, but sized like a medium cookie.  Bake for 15-17 minutes.  

Remove from oven and allow to set on the baking sheet for three minutes until removing to a wire rack to cool completely.  Sprinkle tops with powdered sugar. Makes 24.

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Mouthwatering Monday

Made by You Monday
On the Menu Monday
Wow Us Wednesday Foodie Friday
Sweets For A Saturday
Cast Party Wednesdays

New York-Style Crumb Cake

I love a good pastry -- just ask my thighs.  There is nothing better in the morning with a nice cup of freshly brewed coffee than a GOOD pastry.  But with the nearest bakery of quality (and when I say quality I'm not talking Bread Co/Panera or Starbucks, both of whom I do patronize and enjoy, and both have good muffins and such, I'm talking the bakers-in-the-back making crumb cakes, tarts, and danish kind of bakery, the scent of which wafts through the shop greeting you at the door when you walk in, kind of bakery...A BAKERY!) more that 15 miles away, if I want something handy at breakfast time I'm going to have to make it myself.


This morning I found a recipe that certainly fills the bill.  It's a product of the BAKED bakery shop in Brooklyn, NY and now you can make it in your own home thanks to the proprietors' latest book Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, a sequel to their first book, simply entitled Baked.


It is dense, moist, and delicious with a hefty amount of crumbs (something I deem absolutely necessary in a good crumb cake), and the beauty of this particular recipe is that the cake is honestly better the next day.  It freezes well too, if you have any left (I tend to dole out slices to anyone who have them and offer up an opinion), and is enhanced, I think, by warming in the microwave for about 15 seconds before consuming.  Oh, mamma, you're going to love this one!

New York-Style Crumb Cake


For the Crumb Topping:

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and warm

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the Cake:

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1-1/4 cups sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and position the rack in the center. Butter the sides and bottom of a glass 9 x 13-inch pan.

Make the Crumb Topping:

In a medium bowl, stir together both sugars, the salt, and cinnamon. Add the melted butter and whisk until combined. Fold in the flour until it is absorbed and set the mixture aside.

Make the Cake:

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into medium bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until it is completely smooth and ribbon-like. Scrape down the bowl and add the sugar. Beat the mixture until it starts to look fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again for 30 seconds. Add the sour cream and vanilla and beat just until incorporated. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, scraping down the bowl before each addition, beating only until it is just incorporated.

Assemble the cake:

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Use your hands to scoop up a handful of the topping and make a fist. The topping should hold together. Break off in chunks and drop them over the cake. Repeat to use all the topping. Remember, the topping layer will look outrageously thick.

Bake the cake for 45 to 55 minutes or until tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Rotate the pan two times during the baking process. Cool the entire pan on a wire rack for about 30 minutes before serving.

Buy the book:

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