Coffee Spiced Crumb Cake

Inspired by a tweet from @akikamozawa about sipping coffee while smelling crumb cake bake, I decided to give coffee streusel a go.

Coffee Enhanced Ideas in Food Crumb Cake

Of course, the easiest option is adding espresso powder, a form of instant coffee. However, I figured fresh espresso ground coffee would be much better. We've all seen it before in spice rubs so why not in a pastry application?

Coffee Streusel Mix

I used the Ideas in Food crumb cake recipe as my starting point. For the streusel, I replaced half a teaspoon of the cinnamon with finely ground coffee. I also swapped out the brown sugar for smoked dulce de leche wetted granulated sugar for fun.

Coffee Crumb Cake Crust

The results were ridiculously delicious. The aroma alone was enough to make me want to eat it right out of the oven. The microbursts of coffee within the streusel were amazing. The kicker was the richness of the butter pleasantly pushing the bitterness into the background. Another fun bit was the dulce de leche that gave the streusel bits of brittle like qualities.

Espresso ground coffee is a spice well worth investigating further. 

As always, keep the ideas bouncing...