linbakesbread

Good morning bread bakers!

Today I am baking New Jersey Crumb Buns from Cooks Country. Cooks Country has a TV show on my local PBS station and one evening I watched Bridget and Julia bake these. Oh my gosh – the crumb buns looked so good… I knew this was going to make my list of breads to bake. I kind of think this is more of a cake, but it has yeast in the dough and “bun” in the title, so I’m saying this counts as bread. I anticipate that these will be like those delectable Hostess crumb cakes I ate as a kid – can’t wait to taste the grown-up version of these little cakes.

Here is the recipe. Please bake New Jersey Crumb Buns with me.

Special Tools you will need:

Heavy duty mixer such as a Kitchenaid
9x13 baking pan

The ingredients:

Cake Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup milk
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast (1 packet)
¾ teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces and softened

Topping Ingredients

18 Tablespoons (2 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, melted
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
4 cups Softasilk cake flour (I used King Arthur cake flour, but next time I will use Softasilk)
Powdered sugar to sprinkle on top

For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a 9x13-inch baking pan.

In a bowl of a heavy duty mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine flour, milk, sugar, egg, yeast, and salt. Knead on low speed until dough comes together, about 2 minutes.

With mixer running, add soft butter 1 piece at a time, waiting until each piece is incorporated before adding next. Increase speed to medium-high and continue to knead until dough forms stretchy, web-like strands on sides of bowl, about 6 minutes longer (dough will be soft and sticky).

Using a greased rubber spatula, transfer dough to prepared pan. Using floured hands, press dough into even layer to edges of dish. Cover dish tightly with plastic wrap and let dough rise at room temperature until slightly puffy, about 1 hour.

For the topping: Ten minutes before the dough has finished rising, whisk melted butter, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt together in large bowl. Add flour and stir with wooden spoon until mixture forms a thick, cohesive dough. Let sit for 10 minutes to allow flour to hydrate.

If the dough has pulled away from the sides of the dish after rising, gently pat it back into place using your floured fingers. Break topping mixture into rough ½-inch pieces using your fingers and scatter in even layer over dough in the pan. (Be sure to scatter all crumbs even though it may seem like too much.)

Bake the buns: Bake in pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes. Crumbs should be golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in center of cake should come out clean. Transfer dish to a wire rack and let cake cool completely. Using a spatula, transfer cake to cutting board; cut cake into 12 squares. Dust with powdered sugar.

To make ahead: (I didn’t do this – but thought I’d add this in since it seems like a great tip.) Once dough has been pressed into even layer in baking pan and has been wrapped tightly with plastic wrap, dough can be refrigerated for at least 4 hours (to ensure proper rising) or up to 24 hours. When ready to bake, let dough sit on counter for 10 minutes before proceeding with putting the topping on the dough. Increase baking time to 40 minutes.

Here are the final crumb buns

Reflections on this bake:

Very tasty with an overload of crumbs – in a good way. A little messy to eat – and a lot of the crumbs fell off. I think next time I make this I will use Softasilk flour. A note in the recipe say that using unbleached cake flour will result in a dryer crumb and my crumbs were pretty dry. At the request of a reader, I am going to start rating the recipes from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best.