DISASTER BAKING #13: German Crumb Cake for Problems Kale Can't Solve
Dear Disaster Bakers,
On the C train earlier this week, I sat near a teen. The teen was on his, like, second-to-last bite of a Levain cookie, which I identified in two seconds. The Levain cookie—it's a venerable specimen. Google it. It's at least 16 ounces of semi-raw butter, flour, and chocolate. It's like Michael Caine. So distinctive!
So I knew it was a Levain cookie, and the teen polished it off. Shoved it in his mouth. Crunch. Chew. Delicious. I had four seconds to process how much I wanted a cookie, despite the fact that it was 9:46 a.m. and not quite an appropriate time for a cookie, when the teen reached into his backpack and pulled out a second Levain cookie.
He finished that one between 86th Street and 59th Street - Columbus Circle. That's three stops. When he stood up to leave, I wanted to chase after him. What's it like to be 17 and have the metabolism of a mountain lion? If this is a snack, what is lunch? Is this because the end of the world is near?
At home, my parents have this New Yorker cartoon taped to their freezer. It's a tombstone etched with the words, "I can't believe I ate all that kale for nothing."
I like kale, and I still think GE should include a framed print of this cartoon with each appliance it sells. We're all on a mission to Goop our brains and optimize our to-do lists, as if the whole planet isn't on fire. The teens know there's no time for kale. Or rather, there's a time and a place for kale, and it's not now. Now it's back-to-back-Levain-cookie season until someone solves the climate crisis and North Korea gives up its nukes.
Or we could make this crumb cake. It's this-crumb-cake season until this interminable period in America is over.
As readers of this newsletter (and other people alive on this earth) know, we are broken! Ripped in a million pieces. There's so much bad news, it could choke a person.
Gov. Ralph Northam tried to prove this weekend he isn't either the man in KKK robes or the man in blackface in a photo printed on his own medical school yearbook page because he remembers the other time he wore blackface, and it wasn't this one. Now another Democrat in the state has been accused of sexual assault and one more has come forward to admit that he too once wore blackface. He could have just dressed up as a Power Ranger, but no! He had to be a giant racist. You can catch up on all those scandals here. For the last word on this, here's a tweet from CNN commentator Jess McIntosh: "How far down in the VA line of succession do we find a woman?"
Donald Trump delivered a State of the Union address that didn't even bother with basic grammar, let alone common sense.
Melania Trump invited a small child who was bullied because his name is Joshua Trump. Joshua proceeded to sleep through the entire sordid event.
Meanwhile, viewers at home claimed that Sen. Debbie Stabenow had also been lulled to sleep as Trump droned on about immigration, spread lies about abortion, and weaponized no less than the Holocaust to promote his own nativist ideals. No, Stabenow replied on Twitter. "I wasn't sleeping. I was trying not to scream." Same, Debbie.
What else, what else? A man slashed a woman's face after he harassed her on the street. At least third of the ice caps in the Himalayan Mountains are slated to vanish, even if we all switch to metal straws. The Super Bowl! Ugh! And Ariana Grande has dropped out of the Grammys because the producers somehow insulted her.
If it weren't for the precise combination of Stacey Abrams, the New Yorker's latest scrumptious fabulist drama, which does involve multiple incidents of fake cancer, and this crumb cake, I would need to remain in bed until 2020. No disturbances! Please leave food, caffeine, and 10,000-word articles about grift near the door.
When we were kids, we had German crumb cake at least twice a month. It's not like a New York coffee cake, which is pliant and moist and topped with feeble crumbs. No. This is German crumb cake. Hardier stuff. Picture the Andes Mountains, if the Andes were made with three sticks of melted butter, three kinds of sugar, and baked at 350F for 35 minutes. Picture an acupressure mat except instead of plastic disks and spikes, it's giant crumb boulders. We used to get it from Gruenebaum's in Riverdale, NY. It was the ultimate treat. Or as I once put it, astonished: "Better than cinnamon buns and Frosted Flakes combined."
My (German) grandmother let us eat it for breakfast when we slept over, but we had to have Total cereal with sliced strawberries first. No matter how much cereal we'd finished, Nana would make us eat three more bites. Then crumb cake. More fiber, more vitamins, more nutrition. Then cake.
Eat the kale. Read the headlines. Wallow. Sob. Rage. Scream. Then bake cake.
German Extra Extra Crumb Cake
Servings: One 9x13-inch pan, cut up into decadent slabs.
Distractability: 5
Scratchpad: One point for each of the three sticks of butter. One point for the crumbs, which are the best part of most cakes but here are the entire cake. One point for my grandmother Ellen Kahn who would have shaken her head, pursed her lips, and Disaster Baked with me until 2020 at least.
Notes: I remember the taste of Gruenebaum's crumb cake so well I could diagram it. It taste like childhood, all butter and sweetness. Zero antagonism. All pleasure. I feel an ancestral need to make this recipe the closest possible approximation to the Gurenebaum's version, not least because Gruenebaum's has not made this particular cake in at least a decade. For the base, I riffed on the one in our preferred babka recipe. For the crumbs, I stuffed as much butter as possible into the streusel ratio I like to use and then multiplied it. It will look like an absurd amount of crumbs. Don't hesitate.
I don't like to be precious about baked goods, but this recipe is special. I hope it does German Jews—in all our fastidiousness!—justice. I think about Opa and Nana all the time now. Both survived the Holocaust. Two beautiful, brave immigrants. We should be so fortunate to throw open our doors to more like them.
Ingredients:
Base
2 1/4 cup (270 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (50 grams) sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast (not active dry)
1 large egg
3/4 cup milk (I used 2 percent, but whole is fine, too)
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, softened (I mean it!)
Crumbs
3 1/4 sticks (26 tablespoons or 367 grams) butter, melted
1 1/4 cup (250 grams) sugar
1 cup (200 grams) brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups (720 grams) cake flour (Yes, cake flour. Look it up. Normal flour will work, but the crumbs will bake up a little firmer and drier.)
Powdered sugar (optional)
To-Do List:
Grease a 9x13-inch dish.
Make the cake dough. Full disclosure: This is easier with stand mixer, which I traveled to my parents' apartment to use. But it's doable by hand. Just knead the dough for about 10 minutes and do not add any flour, no matter how sticky it gets. In the bowl of the stand mixer, combine flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. And egg and milk until dough comes together. Fit the mixer with a dough hook, then with the mixer on low speed, add butter one tablespoon at a time. Wait until each tablespoon is incorporated to add the next. Then raise the speed and knead for at least six minutes. The dough will be super plush. Good. Transfer dough to prepared dish and use hands or a greased spatula to spread it out to the corners. Then cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for about an hour or in the fridge for up to 24 hours.
When the dough has risen, make the crumbs. Preheat the oven to 350F. In a large bowl, mix melted butter, white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add flour (I did this in two batches, because 720 grams is a lot of flour), then stir until mixture forms a thick batter. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes.
Assemble the cake. With the dough risen and the crumbs rested, break the crumbs into boulder-like pieces and pile them in an even layer on top of the dough. Use all the crumbs! Leave no crumb behind! Treat each crumb cluster like it's as precious as this Twitter thread about what it's like to sit next to Timothée Chalamet on a plane.
Bake for 35 minutes, or until crumbs are golden brown and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let cool somewhat. Dust with powdered sugar, or don't. (I didn't, but it does seem cute.) Then serve. This cake is best fresh, but will still taste absurdly good for 2-3 days if kept in an airtight container.
DistractiLinks
I went to see the New Combinations program at the New York City Ballet over the weekend and was reminded that humans can still inspire, even in this dismal era. One of the pieces, called "The Runaway," is set in part to old, excellent Kanye music and gave me chills. Watch a clip and be awed here.
The poet Morgan Parker has a new book out, which I will read soon. In the meantime, I will feast on these photos of her cool apartment. Interior photoshoots should be part of all serious press tours, TY.
Fork Over That Dough
The National Dance Institute was founded in 1976 to give children the pleasure of movement. Read up on it here. Kick a few dollars in their direction and then put on an old Beyonce album and dance until you're a little nauseated. It does feel good, I, a dependable skeptic, promise.
Oh, And
Here is a PSA from Madame Speaker's daughter.
Last week was fun, so the offer stands! Email me at disasterbaking@gmail.com or message me @disaster.baking on Instagram with a terrible headline and I'll recommend a recipe to help you cope.