New York Style Coffee Cake and little else

Huzzah Huzzah, I got my baking done before midnight! (not much before midnight but making slight improvements).

This week we made New York Style Crumb Cake (which in my opinion should be in the coffee cake section).

I have loved the America's Test Kitchen TV show for a long time. Way before I had the cook books and before you could get their recipes online I used to watch the show and frantically scribble down the instructions. My first recipe from them was Mexican Rice and I must say, I was hooked from that day forward (everyone who has tried it says it is the second best Mexican Rice, with the first being El Farols)  Anyways, I saw this recipe on one of their episodes. What is so great about the show is that it tells you lots of tips and tricks and explains why they do things. The cook book does this too! (The other great thing about their show is Christopher Kimball, though I never knew how great he was until I signed up for his monthly email. I still recall when I received the first one and thought "America's Test Kitchen Email has been hacked!!" and then found out that no, Christopher Kimball just sends out the most bizarre emails to the whole world ever-which any of you who bother to read them when I forward them totally agree with. His stories are so entirely lacking in a point or a punchline-it is just unbelievably strange. I got his latest about spring coming to Vermont- I'll have to send that one around). So I saw the episode where they made this crumb cake and I tried it-I did not use the cake flour (though they said it was a must) because I could not find it then. This time around it was at the store and I must say it made a HUGE difference.

Here is the cake

It was fabulous! (and coming from me that means it must be to die for if you like cake, coffee cake, baked goods, etc)

My tasting panel tonight consisted of Roman-a fun guy from the Czech Republic that O brought home from with him. He also gave it rave reviews. O had a mini bite, said nothing about it, and then went and had about 10 of my good friend Kristi's brownies (so it turns out he will eat some baked goods...) (ps Kristi-glad you came over and made those, they were also a hit with Roman). I'm going to take the leftovers (which are the entire pan minus two pieces and one small forkful) to my Chem 105 class tomorrow and see how they like it (plus, I hope this boosts my popularity, I am running for most beloved Spring Semester TA and the competition is tough bc the other TAs are all my grad buddies. I think I may have lost credibility last week when I did not know who Jor-el is (he is superman's father), so I'm going to great lengths to get back in the game)

Anyhow, check this blog for the recipe. http://www.zollyzoo.com/inthekitchen/?p=507
I'm still going to get my birthday post up soon, but, as it is getting late and I have to TA at an insanely early hour, I'd best be off to see to my Czech guests.