Been invited to a birthday party this weekend and the invite says "no gifts."
I am a bit relieved just because we all have so much stuff, it's hard to come up with a little something special that most can't acquire themselves - so I've taken to bringing a breakfast baked-good from my baking-company days as a thank you/hostess /birthday/whatever gift.
Nothing says I care about you like breakfast the next day after I've drunk all your wine and danced on your kitchen island, am I right??
Here's a crumb topping recipe that I keep in a zip-top bag in the freezer for all sorts of occasions. I use it to top unbaked cranberry or raspberry coffee cakes, any sort of fruit pie, and today, on a fool-proof, insanely easy apple bread recipe that I (think I?) I cut out of the WSJ food section last year about this time...?
Make a bag and then know you have a secret gift in your freezer at all times.
Cinnamon Crumb Topping (photo on my Instagram - too lazy to link right now)
1 1/2 sticks unsalted (or salted) butter - room temp to slightly soft
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp salt (omit if you only had salted butter)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
few shakes of ground nutmeg
Mix the dry ingredients in a medium to large bowl (I use large because I am, after all, a hot mess).
With your hands, rub the soft butter into the dry ingredients until fully incorporated and you have a range of clump sizes, a little powder all the way up to biggish clumps.
For optimum clump size, freeze it all on a metal tray for about 20 minutes, then move to zip top bag; or just put topping straight into the bag and into the freeze, relatively flat so your clumps don't turn into one giant frozen clump. That's a bummer, you have to wait for it to defrost a bit before showering your baked-good with crumby goodness before it goes into the oven.
Whatever you top, bake generally as instructed.
And the recipient will thank you.
