Club: Baked - NY Style Crumb Cake Muffins

Woo hoo! First recipe for a new baking group! Club: Baked came about as an idea from Karen of Karen's Cookies Cakes and More. While it's been a great ride, our SMS recipes will wind up in August, and several of us decided that we were in for more baking so we chose another book :) Truthfully, I had never heard of Matt Lewis's Baked: Explorations before it was mentioned for this group, but after receiving the book, I am stoked for this group! If this first recipe is any indication, baking through this cookbook is going to be great (and delicious!).

Our first recipe was hosted by Karen and you can find her post here. The cake was originally intended to baked in a 9x13 with a crumb layer in almost equal thickness to the cake layer. I am definitely amongst the crumb-layer lovers, so this ratio sounds perfect! In reality, I didn't end up making the full recipe as that would be a TON of cake for only two people. Karen had noted on the website that she had trouble when baking half the recipe in a 8x8-inch pan, so I opted for muffins. The only downside of my muffins - they can't hold onto nearly as much crumb topping as the cake. I still really want to make this recipe as written and am absolutely going to keep it in mind if I ever need to bring a dish! 

My muffins came together really easily, and I ended up with a dozen typical sized muffins and a little extra crumb topping. Not knowing how long they'd need to be in the oven, I originally set the timer for 18 minutes. Not even close. In the end, they needed about 28-30 minutes to finish baking. While they were baking, my husband kept asking me are these going to be good? With that much crumb topping, how could they not? They were awesome! We were able to enjoy them warm from the oven on the first morning, and what a great way to start the day. Sounds like this group is going to be great!

If you want to see the other bakers' links or want to join up with us, check out the Club: Baked page!