I eat pretty much the same breakfast every weekday at the office -- yogurt with cereal and fruit. The fruit varies with the season, and recently it's been pink grapefruit. Since I've consistently had grapefruit in the house over the past few weeks, I decided to try Melissa Clark's recipe for "Grapefruit Crumb Cake." I was intrigued with the idea of putting fresh grapefruit segments in a cake.
The recipe uses the reverse creaming method for the cake. You put all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) into a bowl; mix in softened butter; and then add the liquid ingredients (sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and grapefruit zest). You pour the batter into a greased springform pan, sprinkle on grapefruit sections that have been dried out slightly on a paper towel-lined plate, and add a crumb topping (flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, almonds, and melted butter). You are supposed to add a sprinkle of salt to the grapefruit before adding the crumb topping, but I wasn't paying close attention and I accidentally skipped this step.
I waited until the cake was completely cooled before releasing it from the pan and slicing it. While the recipe says that it yields eight servings, a 10-inch pan is so large that I cut my cake into 16 reasonably-sized slices (although the photo above shows one-eighth of the cake, before I bisected it).
I absolutely loved the crumb topping on the cake. The recipe gave the option of either ground ginger or cardamom for the topping and I went with ginger since I didn't want to have to break out my mortar and pestle to grind cardamom (it takes a lot of elbow grease to generate 3/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom). The ginger flavor was surprisingly strong, but the crumbs were firm and buttery, and the almonds were a terrific addition. I was afraid that the grapefruit might make the cake soggy, but it didn't. However, I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more grapefruit flavor in the cake, especially because I had enough segments (300 grams worth) to cover most of the surface of the batter. I suspect that if I had actually sprinkled the grapefruit with salt that it would have enhanced its flavor, so I consider this shortcoming my fault.
Even though this cake wasn't as grapefruit-forward as I had hoped, it was still a very tasty cake with a delicious crumb topping. But if you're looking for a grapefruit fix, it's a lot easier and more effective to go straight to the fruit!
Recipe: "Grapefruit Crumb Cake" by Melissa Clark, recipe available from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
The recipe uses the reverse creaming method for the cake. You put all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) into a bowl; mix in softened butter; and then add the liquid ingredients (sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and grapefruit zest). You pour the batter into a greased springform pan, sprinkle on grapefruit sections that have been dried out slightly on a paper towel-lined plate, and add a crumb topping (flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, almonds, and melted butter). You are supposed to add a sprinkle of salt to the grapefruit before adding the crumb topping, but I wasn't paying close attention and I accidentally skipped this step.
I absolutely loved the crumb topping on the cake. The recipe gave the option of either ground ginger or cardamom for the topping and I went with ginger since I didn't want to have to break out my mortar and pestle to grind cardamom (it takes a lot of elbow grease to generate 3/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom). The ginger flavor was surprisingly strong, but the crumbs were firm and buttery, and the almonds were a terrific addition. I was afraid that the grapefruit might make the cake soggy, but it didn't. However, I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more grapefruit flavor in the cake, especially because I had enough segments (300 grams worth) to cover most of the surface of the batter. I suspect that if I had actually sprinkled the grapefruit with salt that it would have enhanced its flavor, so I consider this shortcoming my fault.
Even though this cake wasn't as grapefruit-forward as I had hoped, it was still a very tasty cake with a delicious crumb topping. But if you're looking for a grapefruit fix, it's a lot easier and more effective to go straight to the fruit!
Recipe: "Grapefruit Crumb Cake" by Melissa Clark, recipe available from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
- "Frozen and Fabulous: Chilled Grapefruit-Caramel Meringue Pie," January 11, 2019.
- "Tickled Pink for Grapefruit: Tart with Grapefruit Curd and Campari," June 10, 2014.
- "This Zest Is the Best: Grapefruit Bavarian with Caramel Sauce and Candied Peel," June 7, 2013.
- "The Quest for a Grapefruit Dessert: Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies," October 21, 2011.
- "Mother Nature's Sweetest Gift of Winter: Grapefruit Cake," January 26, 2010.
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