This recipe for New Jersey Crumb Coffee Cake makes an incredibly moist cake with a extra thick cinnamon, sugar & butter crumb topping – just like you find in New Jersey bakeries.
Growing up in n New Jersey, I grew up on cakes like Entenmann’s Crumb Coffee Cake (an all time favorite of mine) and Crumb buns from the local bakery.
I have a weakness for anything with a crumb topping. On Sunday mornings, my parents always had fresh crumb cake and donuts from the bakery. The best was when it would still be warm!
Food can really remind you of home, but Crumb Cake isn’t known in England so I haven’t had it in years. This blog is inspiring me to try to recreate my most loved foods from back home and the good news is – this Jersey Girl can bake!
This is my version of the Entenmann’s cake. Creating this recipe took me several attempts. Before now, it never turned out quite right, but I have finally perfected it and I am more than happy to post it for all of you.
The base is lovely and moist and I created a really thick crispy crumb topping (I have waited years for that topping). It’s so thick that for some it may be a little too thick.
If it looks that way in the picture, you can cut the topping recipe by a quarter, but to me the topping is the best part and It is to die for!
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- TOPPING
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar packed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 sticks butter melted (plus more if needed)
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup powdered sugar for dusting
- CAKE
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 sticks butter softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/4 Cups Buttermilk
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla
- TOPPING:
- Mix both sugars, cinnamon, and salt in medium mixing bowl. Add the warm melted butter and stir to blend.
- Add flour and mix with a fork until moist clumps form. Squeeze a handful of the topping into your hand, if it doesn't clump together, add some more melted butter until it does. Set aside.
- CAKE:
- preheat the oven to 350f/175c
- Grease 13x9 inch baking pan
- In a medium mixing bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Beat the softened butter in large bowl until light.
- Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition.
- Add buttermilk and vanilla, beat just until blended.
- Add flour mixture in 3 additions, beating just until blended after each addition.
- Transfer cake batter to prepared baking pan; spreading it evenly over the pan.
- Hand squeeze small handfuls of topping together to form small clumps. Drop topping clumps evenly over cake batter, covering with a thick layer of topping.
- Bake 1 hour or until tester comes out clean and topping is deep golden brown and a little crisp.
- Cool cake in dish on rack at least 30 minutes.
- Dust with powdered sugar and cut into squares to serve.
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Until reading your first sentence, I had no idea Entenmann’s was a NE thing. As a NY-gone-Jersey girl I can’t wait to make this! My husband always grumbles when the local bagel shop runs out of their crumb cake on the weekend well before we make it there so being able to make my own will be a very pleasant surprise for him 🙂
Hi Stelly,
Thanks for the comment! I was under the impression Entenmann’s was not available nationwide (like some other cake companies available in the grocery stores), but after reading your comment, I looked it up on wikipedia and I may be mistaken. I will ask a friend who lives in TN and find out for sure.
That said, this is a great recipe and I bet your husband will love it! I have half a cake in the freezer and am itching to take it out because I’ve been thinking about this cake since I made it! Please let me know if you end up trying the recipe! 🙂
Entenmann’s was originally from Bayshore, NY on Long Island. They were only in the NE until the early 1980’s. I moved to northern CA in 1981 and soon after found Entenmann’s crumb cake and other items were available there!
I haven’t found any Entanmenn’s here in rural Illinois. Lived in NYC for years and moved here, Illionois, been living here for seven years. Have not seen one single crumb of anything from them! Much to my dismay.
Erren, this looks amazing! 🙂 I MISS proper coffee crumb cake! Trying to finagle a way to make this gluten free & then I’ll be partaking! In the meantime, I’ve pinned it!
Thanks, Anyonita! It really is a great recipe so if you find a way to make it gluten free, it will be well worth your trouble! 🙂 Thanks for the pin as well!
Anyonita
I just made some gluten free crumb cake today. Hodgsen was the brand of flour. Since it gets crumbly I just added some yogurt. Surprisingly it turned out well.
Oooh, I haven’t had Entenmann’s crumb cake in years! Now I’m craving it like crazy, thanks a lot. 😉 Oh, and it’s not just a New England thing – I’ve lived in California all my life, and we’ve had it here as long as I can remember. 🙂
Thanks, Allison. I don’t know why I thought it was an east coast company, but I have updated the post and took that section out.
I know what you mean though, I can’t look at these photos without wanting to go bake another one of these cakes! It’s a real weakness!
Where can you get Entenmann’s Crumb Cake in California??? I have lived here for 30 years and I have never, ever, seen it sold – and I mean every major store as well as Entenmanns direct stores. Are you sure you not mixing it up with the ‘filled’ crumb cakes? If not, please tell me where I can find it. Calls to Entenmanns HQ have been met the answer – and I’m not kidding – “we do not sell any of our Crumb Cake’s in CA and we never will”! they were adamant. I hope you are right! Tell me where – please!
Hi Terry, I have no idea where you can find it in CA, but will let you know if anyone offers some info!
Thanks Erren – my daughter tried the recipe and it was fantastic – the only problem she had was that the crumbs were a little to ‘crispy’…any suggestions?
Hi Terry, next time try covering the cake with foil for the first half of baking, but make sure you don’t open the oven before it’s half way through! I’m so glad you liked it! 🙂
Hi Terry! I lived in Sacramento, California 15 years ago. I’m from Long Island, NY and Entenmann’s was a regular part of my regular diet! I missed the local bakery my Dad would go to every Sunday after church. Entenmann’s was the closest thing to it!
The Entenmann’s delivery would come only on Tuesday’s, to the local Bel Air supermarket. They’d only deliver two crumb cakes each week (What? Only two?) The rest of the delivery items were the “Fat-Free” cakes that were so popular back then.
I’d buy one cake and leave the other for someone else. During the week if I saw that no one bought it, I’d buy it and put it in the freezer….I did this every week for months! One day my husband opened up the freezer and there were five boxes of crumb cake, and one in the refrigerator! What can I say, I love it!
Best of luck finding the cake Terry! Try to make your own, this recipe looks amazing. I can’t wait to make it!
Thank you Erren 🙂
Erren, I am going to attemp this for my mother. Today is her birthday and she requested a crumb cake and specified she loves the crumb topping the best. I am going to assume the temp conversion is 350 degrees. Am I correct? Wish me luck because I’m making this at the last minute since I had to work this morning!
Hi Debbie, so sorry I didn’t get this sooner! Yes, 350 was correct (I fixed the recipe). How did it turn out?? I hope your mom enjoyed it!
Thank you for sharing this recipe! Everyone LOVED it! Definitely a keeper!
As an old Jersey girl growing up in Westfield and Toms River in the 1950s and 60s I loved having crumb buns from the local bakery every Sunday…and salt stick rolls too! We can get Entenmanns here in Michigan but I haven’t seen their crumb cake here, so I can’t wait to make this for my family…they have no idea what they’ve been missing. Yum. Thank you Erren.
Hi Karen, thanks so much for the comment! So glad you like the recipe. Let me know how it comes out! 🙂
Can I sub something for the buttermilk?
Hi Lisa, a quick sub for buttermilk is adding vinegar or lemon juice to milk. The recipe is as follows: For every cup of milk, add
1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar.
Love your site and your recipes. I am originally from South Jersey. Cape May, to be exact.
Hi Carol! Always good to hear from a fellow jersey girl! 🙂
They don’t sell Entemanns in Texas either. Every time I go back home to IL, I have to bring my husband back some. They just started selling Entemanns coffee in Texas so we are hoping soon!!
I notice that in the topping you have 1 1/2 CUPS butter but in the cake ingredients you have 1 1/2 STICKS. Is this correct.
Hi Heather, I live in England and measure the butter with a scale (it comes in big blocks instead of sticks). I’m American so when I convert the measurements, I sometimes do it in sticks and sometimes cups as we can do it either way. I must have done the conversions at two different times and never noticed! I can assure you I have tested the recipe and it works. Sorry for the confusion! I’ll have a look at it and see if I could make it more consistent!
Scoured the internet for a good recipe. I can usually tell which one I’ll choose based on the list of ingredients. Many other sites just call for the basics and exclude the vanilla and buttermilk etc. This was by far the best crumb cake my stomach has had the delight to indulge in. Such a rich moist inside topped with the perfect crunchiness of crumbs.THANK YOU!!!!!
Thank you so much! I’m so glad you like it! 🙂
Thanks for the recipe. I lived in NJ and sure miss Entemanns. I miss the crumb buns from the Ostermillers bakery in Freehold NJ even more. They werent a cake, they were a different texture. I guess thats the reason they were called buns. We had crumb buns and hard rolls every Sunday morning….with a pat of butter on each bite.
Thanks for the recipe. Im going to try it for Christmals
Hi Rich, So sorry for the late reply. I haven’t been well for some time and the app on my phone doesn’t allow me to reply to comments. I don’t like posts to go unanswered though so just wanted to say thanks for the feedback and say I too miss crumb buns more than I could say! One day I will try to create a recipe for them. Did you try the recipe in the end?
This cake looked yummy. Made it today, didn’t come out very good. well taste wise was good. I think the topping was to heavy for the cake because mine sunk. kinda giving me an upside down coffee cake. I’ve made plentyof cakes before an had a few recipes with a heavy topping do the same. flavor was good will have to tweak the recipe for next time.
Hi Kay, So sorry for the late reply. I haven’t been well for some time and the app on my phone doesn’t allow me to reply to comments. I’m really sorry to hear it didn’t work for you. I’ve made this recipe more than any other baked recipe I have and haven’t ever had a problem with it. It could be different brand ingredients, measuring cups or different ovens. It’s really hard to say. I’ve said in the post that it’s created to have a very thick crumb topping and if you prefer, you can half the crumb recipe. I’d stat with trying that. Hope this helps.
Same thing happened to me today, Kay! I moved to the UK and was so excited to try this. I will try to half the crumb next time! It does taste great though!
Mine topping sank too. Still delicious,but what did I do wrong?
Thx!
Hi Tyne, So sorry for the late reply. I haven’t been well for some time and the app on my phone doesn’t allow me to reply to comments. It’s hard to say why it sank. It could be just the difference in brands of flour and different measuring cups (no they are not all created equal). I’m also living in the UK and as an American living in the UK, I can tell the flour is a bit different. I don’t have access to US flour to compare, but I have had Americans tell me it worked for them just fine. I’ve made this recipe more than any other baked recipe I’ve created and it’s never sunk for me, but I’m not baking in your oven. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you. I’m glad you liked it all the same.
The best crumb cake ever have made it several times already !!!! Delish is what my family says…….
The beauty of this cake is the topping grows into the cake when it bakes. You people said the topping sunk! That’s good! That’s the character of crumb cake the topping is suppose to be more than the bottom layer, that’s why its called Crumb Cake! I have my own recipe for Crumb Cake, its similar, but I prefer mine since I think there is enough sugar in the topping so I do not add white sugar as suggested above.
I’m in Houston, Tx, born and raised in NYC. I need to try this and veganize it too! I can only find bagged mini sugared donuts from entemanns here… no cakes. I miss the crumb and the goldencake with chocolate topping. All 110 lbs of me could put one of those bad boys away with no problem! Hahaa! When I moved, I went through MONTHS of withdrawals from Entemanns, bagels and pizza… When you figure out a good NY bagel, LET ME KNOW lol
Hi Kim, You miss crumb cake and I miss weighing a 110 lbs! 🙂 Sadly, I think the key to NY bagels is NY water so I think we’re both out of luck!
This looks like a great coffee cake, and I’m in the process of making it. I wondered if you could confirm that the topping does, in fact, use 1 1/2 CUPS of butter, and that the cake itself uses 1 1/2 STICKS…and not cups. Thanks and am looking forward to trying this.
Hi Amy, I live in the UK and weigh my butter because it comes in blocks not sticks. When I convert the recipe, sometimes I do cups and sometimes I do sticks which is why it’s different in different sections, but I can assure you the recipe is correct and has been tested several times. I hope you like it, it’s a favorite if mine!
I have made this a couple of times. The recipe calls for too much butter for the batter…..I’n my opinion. It was too rich and too much butter (grease) for my taste. Cut back the butter for the batter and its more like a real NJ crumb bun.
Thank you Erren! The cake turned out awesome…no sinking for mine. I might have over-mixed the cake batter – it seemed a little tough. I also cut the recipe in half – there is still A LOT of the topping. It is really a great recipe, and I’ll definitely make it again!!!
Hi Amy, so glad it worked for you an that you enjoyed it! 🙂
I tried your recipe, but the cake bubbled through the topping. Did I not put a thick enough layer of topping? I also bked them in mini loaf pans
Hi em, it’s very hard to troubleshoot what went wrong when I used a different pan for the recipe. I hope it at least tasted good! 🙂
I LOVE crumb topping and this recipe is the perfect ratio of cake to topping. I made jumbo muffins instead of a cake.
Hi Barbara, I’m so pleased to hear you liked it! Muffins is a great way to switch it up (although you must have had a lot of muffins)! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
The whole family would ride into the next town (which had the best bakery around) after church every Sunday and we’d always get crumb buns (and occasionally those huge chocolate chip cookies)! I will definitely be making these the next time we have a family get-together–these will remind everybody of those trips; I imagine we’ll be doing a lot of talking about the good old days!
Thanks so much for sharing your story. It seems that crumb cake and Sundays is something a lot of families can relate to. Being in England now, I tend to do things so differently with my son from how I was raised. I think I’m going to bring back special Sunday breakfasts so he grows up with the same special memories 🙂
Hi Erren,
I made this for my Sunday School class this morning and they loved it! I didn’t really form small clumps of topping. I picked up handfuls of the topping and rubbed my thumbs and fingers together to sprinkle different size pieces of topping all over the top of the cake. It turned out perfectly with most of the topping on top and some of it randomly in the middle or bottom of the cake. None of the clumps of topping were more than a 1/2 inch in diameter or so and there was lots of it. Probably at least an inch or more of topping pieces in all different sizes. I live in California and maybe this will help others who had the topping sink to the bottom! Thanks for the recipe. The cake was so moist! Yummy! I was worried that my batter was too thick but it came out perfect!!!
Hi Jill, What a great idea! I love comments like this it really makes me happy to hear my recipes are used in such fantastic ways and the fact that you all enjoyed it makes it even better! Thanks for letting me know! 😀
I am a Jersey girl, born and raised. I remember picking those yummy crumbs off the cake when I was a kid. This cake is on the top of my list to try! And speaking of Entemanns….I moved to Alaska in 1980. Boy did I miss all that Jersey food! Several years later Entemanns arrived in Alaska! Oh the joy! Finally a taste of home! I’ve left Alaska but still not living home on the east coast. Soon I think,,,,soon 🙂
Hi Nancy, Thanks so much for sharing your story. I get a lot of similar comments on this post. I can totally relate – I miss Jersey food so much (what I wouldn’t do for a diner breakfast!). I’m going home this summer and can’t wait!
Erren,
I just made this cake for the first time and it came out perfect! The only thing i did different is for the topping I used 2 cups of flour instead of 3. I think that my oven runs hot, so I baked the cake for 50 min.
LOVED it!
Gina
Up State NY
Hi Gina! That’s so great to hear! I love hearing when people enjoy my food! Thank you for the feedback 🙂
Thank you Jersey girl! I’m living in Louisiana and they never heard of Entemann’s down here! I’m going to try this the first chance I get. How I long for that thick crumb topping….who needs the cake…
You’re very welcome! I hope you enjoy it and have a recipe to make every time you have a craving! 🙂
Hi Erren. Quick question. I made this and there were no crumbs. Is it possible that the 1 1/2 cups melted butter should actually be 1 1/2 sticks? It was good but wouldn’t call it a crumb cake. All the topping soaked through and ended up on the bottom.
Thanks,
KS.
It sounds like the batter was too wet (although really hard to troubleshoot other people’s cooking). I make the batter thick and add more rising agent to help with the weight of the topping. I make this cake a lot and never had an issue with it sinking, I keep meaning to make the butter measurements all cups or sticks (I created the recipe in two steps and it’s just how I wrote my notes). You can try cutting the crumb topping in half. I’ll update the recipe now.
I just moved to the UK from NYC and was so excited to come across this recipe! I also had some sinking crumbs,but we just moved into our house and I have no idea if the oven runs hot or not. It’s still delicious and I will be trying again with 1/2 the crumb as you suggested! Thanks
Just made this for Christmas morning for my husband(of 50 yrs) who’s from Bayonne – and he had to taste it and he went bonkers…said it was just like he remembered as a kid. It is good, but I’d still rather have monkey bread -thanx for the recipe and h appy holidays
Hi Linda, sorry for the late reply, I took some time off over the holidays. I’m so glad your husband enjoyed it and it lived up to the memories! Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂
Hi Erren……..I have just found your recipe today through Pinterest and have to say it looks yummy, and will try this tomorrow. Just one question though, why is it called coffee cake when there is no coffee in the recipe??
Hi Sheena, Great question! It’s called coffee cake because it was traditionally served with coffee. I really hope you like it. Please keep me posted.
Aha, ok that makes sense now, thanks Erren
hello Erren
I love your blog,I did try your citrus and Olive oil cake, just AMAZING,thank you
Being French I expected a coffee bit somewhere in the recipe, so asked a British friend and she solved the mystery,”cake to eat with coffee”, she would eat it with tea of course, nice……….
But Ido love coffee cake, any going??
Erren, girl, you nailed this!! As I too am a Jersey girl, this sooo reminds me of crumb cake from the bakery on Sunday mornings after church. This is next on my list to make! Thanks for refreshing a childhood happy memory!
Thanks Christine 🙂 I’m really hope you enjoy it!
***Update***
I made this on Sunday!! Can you say KEEPER! Wow this was awesome! Thanks again Erren! This is going to the top of my dessert bookmarks! Looking forward to trying your other recipes! You have definitely found your calling. Well done!
This so so good to hear! I’m so glad you enjoyed them! Thanks for the update and such great feedback! 🙂
Hi Erren, Thanks for an amazing recipe. The best crumb cake on the northeast! My crumbs also sunk into the middle each time I have made this cake…..I was totally stressed about it,reworked baking it a bit before adding the crumbs but still sunk. I made it for a tailgate party after the reworking, and was going to leave my crumb cake at home till my husband said no way bring it, it’s delicious. WELL…..I was called a genius for putting the crumbs in the middle, so much better then losing half the crumbs to the ground, because anyone who has ever had NY/NJ crumb cake knows the crumbs are the best part. So a big thank you for the amazing recipe!!!
Hi Carrie, I was thinking that maybe it’s the American flour compared to the flour here in the UK. I’ve heard they are different. I’ll let you know if I can get one of my friends back home to experiment with me and test out how to get the crumbs to stay where they should (most of them anyway! I’ll let you know.
I grew up in NJ and miss the food there SO much. My Dad used to love Entenmann’s coffee cake and it was always a treat when we got this. Saving this recipe to try for when I need a taste of home. Thanks for sharing!
I LOVE YOU FOR POSTING THIS NEW JERSEY CRUMB COFFEE CAKE. THANKS, ERREN!!! my obsession is answered. Yes, Entemann’s everything!
What a great comment! Thanks so much! 🙂