In an ideal world, I’d make all of my pastries completely from scratch. I’d craft my own sprinkles for my cupcakes, cultivate natural yeasts for my breads, and churn my own butter. When practicality makes that impossible, I seek out the best product I can to create superior treats. Enter Churn 84.
You know how food always taste better when you’re traveling, and when you try to re-create those foreign delicacies at home it never quite measures up? Oftentimes the ingredients are the problem. After years of trying to replicate rich, flaky croissants fresh from a Parisian boulangerie, I stumbled upon this fantastic butter . Most grocery store butters at 80% butterfat. Pastry chefs aim for 82% butterfat. Churn 84 is, you guessed it, 84% butterfat. And each time I bake with it, I’m transported to a cafe along the Seine.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must divulge that Churn 84 has offered me free butter in exchange for blogging about their products. That said, I would not accept this offer if I didn’t stand behind their product. So, in honor of my butter-iffic discovery, I offer this simple crumb cake recipe and urge all my followers to seek out better butters. It makes a world of difference.
- 400 grams all purpose flour
- 20 grams baking powder
- 5 grams baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 300 grams Churn 84 butter
- 435 grams sugar
- 1 vanilla bean scraped
- 10 grams salt
- 455 grams creme fraiche
- 200 grams all purpose flour
- 200 grams sugar
- 170 grams Churn 84 butter
- 8 grams cinnamon ground (optional)
- 4 grams cardamom ground (optional)
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Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla bean seeds, and salt until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and scrape the bowl well with each addition. Separately sift all dry ingredients together. Mix half the dry with the egg mixture at low speed. Add the creme fraiche and blend until completely smooth. Finish with the remaining half of the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Fill a greased cake pan and smooth the batter as best you can, chill the batter while you make the crumb topping.
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Put all the ingredients in a food processor and process until the desired crumb size is achieved. For larger crumb, blend less.
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Preheat oven to 350F. Remove the cake from refrigeration and top with crumb mixture. Gently spread the crumb to cover the cake and bake until the a skewer inserted into the cake center removes cleanly, about 45 minutes. Let cake cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes then gently remove and enjoy.
This cake is best eaten within 3 days and is exceptional when reheated gently.
