Double (Peach) Crumb Coffee Cake

1.       Preheat the oven to 350. Liberally butter the bottom of a 10-inch cast iron skillet or the entirety of a 10-inch baking pan, ideally a spring-form pan.

2.       Place the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder for the cake in a small bowl, stirring to combine; set aside.

3.       Place all the topping ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well to make a crumbly dough; set aside.

4.       To make the cake batter, cream the butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla and beat well.  Add the flour mixture to the batter all at once, stirring well to combine. The batter will be stiff.

THIS BATTER CAN BE MADE A DAY OR TWO AHEAD AND KEPT IN THE FRIDGE (TIGHTLY COVERED)!

5.       Smooth roughly half the batter into the prepared skillet or baking pan (it will be a fairly thin layer but needs to cover the bottom). As the batter is thick and a bit sticky, I find using a greased mini offset spatula works best here. Arrange the fruit on top in a single layer and then add a fairly thin layer of crumble on top, pressing gently onto the peaches. Add the remainder of the dough and smooth gently over the crumble.  Then add the rest of the fruit in a single layer and top with a decent amount of crumble.

If you want to make muffins, use a cupcake pan and follow these directions for each muffin. Use JUST enough batter in the bottom of the cupcake mold to cover (I used a melon baller to scoop out the right amount of batter). This will make 12 regular-sized muffins. Mini-muffins will not work if you want the two layers, but works very well as a regular one-layer crumb cake muffin.

6.       Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with no crumbs clinging to it, about 45 minutes in a skillet and up to 1 hour and 20 minutes in a cake pan (check it regularly after 45 minutes as cooking times vary depending on the oven and the cake pan/ skillet).  The cake will remain quite moist because of the fruit, but be sure you don't have streaks of raw batter on the toothpick. (If you are baking muffins, you will obviously want to start testing for doneness much sooner -- I start checking at 20 minutes.)

7.       Place the cake, still in the pan, on a cooling rack for at least 10 minutes. If you are baking in a skillet, simply slice and serve out of the pan.  If you baked your cake in a spring-form pan, release the sides and slide cake onto a platter. If you have baked your cake in a non-spring-form baking pan, you will want to have several large flat platters nearby in order to get the cake crumb side up on a platter.  Take one and invert the cake onto it (so crumble is on bottom).  Then take the other platter – the one you’ll want for serving – and invert the cake again so the crumble is on the top.  If possible, do these inversions over a sink as flyaway crumbles are inevitable.

This cake freezes well.