My New Favorite Breakfast Treat: Jam Crumb Cake

I’m a recipe clipper. I subscribe to a number of food-related magazines, as well as my local newspaper (yes, I know that is soooo old school) and I regularly cut out recipes I’d like to try. Originally filed separately by category (breakfast, soup/salad, veg/side dish, main, dessert and misc), each file folder had become so fat that I needed to take action. I spent one cold, rainy May afternoon sorting recipes into additional categories, and for the really big files (breakfast, main and dessert) I split them into Tested and Untested. It so made me want to get in my brand new kitchen and cook, and so I did.

I woke up this morning and decided to make something new for breakfast. Butcher Son had pulled an all-nighter the day before, finishing a particularly difficult art project for college. He had slept for almost 12 hours and I wanted to surprise him with a treat. I found a recipe clipped from Gourmet back in December of 2007. No sure what I was waiting for, and after all was said and done I wish I had tried the recipe earlier.

The recipe took 5 minutes to make and another 25 minutes to cook and utilizes staples from the pantry and refrigerator. Couldn’t have been much easier unless I opened a box of muffin mix. While the original recipe called for raspberry jam, I had some lovely Blenheim apricot jam that Brilliant Daughter and I canned last summer. It smells so heavenly every time I open it (and it is just amazing stirred into plain Greek yogurt).

The recipe would lend itself to using any kind of thick jam or preserves and you could add a pop of flavor by stirring in a few drops of almond extract or a tablespoon of liqueur like Grand Marnier, Framboise, or Amaretto.

For cake

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup milk

1 large egg

1/2 cup raspberry jam or preserves

For crumb topping

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in the middle. Generously butter a 9-inch square or round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Whisk together butter, milk, and egg in a large bowl, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined. Pour batter into cake pan. Dollop jam all over surface, then swirl into batter with spoon.

Make crumb topping:
Whisk together butter, sugars, cinnamon, and salt until smooth. Stir in flour, then blend with your fingertips until incorporated. Sprinkle crumbs in large clumps over top of cake.

Bake cake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean and sides begin to pull away from pan, about 25 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 5 minutes. Serve.

Yield: 6 servings