I’ll admit that my heart sank to my ankles when I was asked to make “something like” the Milk Bar Birthday Cake for a first birthday party a few weeks ago.
It’s not that I have anything against Christina Tosi or Milk Bar—I think she’s incredible and I have been known to enjoy a Cereal Milk Latte—but I have very little interest in making someone else’s recipes, especially when they involve things the average American homebaker doesn’t keep around, like acetate strips and large cake rings. Also, Tosi’s layer cake recipes are notoriously intricate; at their most basic, they involve a cake, a soak, buttercream, and a crumb. That’s a lot, even for someone who enjoys stupidly complicated baking projects 🙋🏻♀️ 
Long story short, I got it together, spent a lot of time looking at my copy of the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook, and then did what I wanted. Since I am unlikely to ever post that full recipe, I’ll go ahead and tell you what I did: I used my Funfetti Cake recipe as-is, trimmed the sides by hand, brushed on sweetened condensed milk for the soak, and layered it all with a cream cheese-spiked vanilla buttercream and a simplified version of the Milk Bar Birthday Cake Crumb. And it was effing delicious. 
I have little intention of making it again because who has that kind of time??? But I will make time for one element: the Funfetti crumb. It’s got all the buttery crunch you’d expect in a shortbread or crispy sugar cookie, but it’s as simple as making the crumb topping for a coffee cake. And it’s colorful and happy and just the tiniest bit salty. And, well, connect the (rainbow sprinkle) dots.
Double Funfetti Crumb Cake is exactly what it sounds like: tender sour cream Funfetti cake with a layer of Funfetti crumb baked on top. It’s the buttery, rainbow-speckled, no-cinnamon-allowed everyday coffee cake you didn’t know you wanted.
The cake is rich and dense, the crumb provides just the right amount of crisp-crunch, and the rainbow sprinkles (jimmies, not nonpareils!) make it as cute as can be! It would be great for a celebratory breakfast or any coffee cake occasion, but I can also see it being a perfect birthday cake for someone who doesn’t like frosting.
What? We all know that person. We may not totally understand their tastes but we respect them, and now we can make extra-fun cake for them to show them how much we love them.
…this took a weird turn. Happy Friday, dear readers! Make yourself a cake this weekend!
Double Funfetti Crumb Cake
makes one 9-inch round cake, about 10 servings
Funfetti Crumb Topping:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons rainbow sprinkles (jimmies, not nonpareils)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
Cake Batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 cup full-fat sour cream, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup whole milk, room temperature
1/3 cup rainbow sprinkles (jimmies, not nonpareils)
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a springform pan. Set aside.
Make the crumb topping. In a small mixing bowl, use a fork to whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk in rainbow sprinkles. Add vanilla and melted butter and stir until dry ingredients are saturated and clumps form. Set aside.
Make the cake batter. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until fluffy. Mix in egg, sour cream and vanilla; mixture may be a bit lumpy. Mix in half the dry ingredients followed by half the milk. Add remaining dry ingredients, followed by remaining milk. Use a silicone spatula (or wooden spoon) to fold in rainbow sprinkles.
Transfer the batter into the prepared pan and spread it evenly. Use your fingers to evenly distribute crumb over the top. Tap full pan a few times on the countertop to release any large air bubbles. Bake cake for 65-75 minut e, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let cool 20 minutes in the pan on a rack. Run a thin, flexible knife around the edge of the pan before releasing the springform. Cake may be served warm or room temperature. If you’d like, let the cake cool completely, invert it and remove the parchment before placing on a serving platter. Sift confectioner’s sugar over the top. Serve.
Leftover cake will keep well at room temperature for up to two days, or in the refrigerator for up to five.
Nobody throws a dinner party quite like my friend, David. He can make a multi-course meal for fifty without panicking for a second, and he’s been known to throw impromptu dinner & a movie nights for twenty without the slightest hesitation.
Both the man and his food are sophisticated without being pretentious—think ham smoked on his roof, cold salmon with dill & yogurt, habanero cheese grits, herby roasted potatoes, tomato & avocado salad with pesto, and a recipe for brussels sprouts that haunts my dreams. And that’s to say nothing of the things he can do with a Costco croissant and a bulb of fennel! I could go on, but the bottom line is that David makes unfussy food that is outrageously delicious, and if you are ever so lucky as to be invited for dinner at his apartment, you must must must go. If not for the main menu or the love of his three-legged cat, go for the Boterkoek.
If you have never heard of Boterkoek (pronounced “bow-ter-kook”), it’s Dutch for “butter cake,” and it’s about to be your new favorite dessert for any and all occasions. David is of Dutch descent and makes it frequently (usually from Heleen A.M. Halverhout’s 
As its name states, this cake is ridiculously buttery. It’s also sweet, simple, and the sort of thing that works just as well for dinner with friends as it does for delivering to new parents or keeping around to pick on over the course of a lazy weekend.
Boterkoek is made from a dough rather than a batter. It includes softened butter (duh), sugar, an egg, flour, vanilla and almond extracts, and minced candied ginger. There’s no leavener, but the final product isn’t terribly dense. I attribute that to beating the softened butter until it’s good and fluffy.
As with all of David’s go-to recipes, this one is decidedly unfussy. The most annoying part of making a Boterkoek is reserving a teaspoon of the beaten egg for brushing over the top of the cake. No bother, really. The thin layer of egg wash makes for a golden top, and a crosshatch pattern carved out with the tines of a fork gives way to crispy edges and a magazine-quality presentation.
I haven’t even mentioned the flavor! Boterkoek is rich and buttery with a touch of almond flavor and a little sharpness from the candied ginger. The texture falls somewhere between a cake, shortbread and a blondie—it’s best eaten with a fork when it’s warm, but can be handheld when it’s room temperature.
Boterkoek is what I like to call an everyday cake; it can be made easily with few ingredients, doesn’t require layering or frosting, and works for almost any casual occasion including, of course, a dinner party at David’s. Or, you know, watching Netflix in your oldest/best pajamas.
Either way, you shouldn’t skimp on the ice cream.
I’ll never forget the first time I found meyer lemons in a regular grocery store. It was 2010, and I was doing a last-second rush for supplies before a blizzard. I have no idea what I shopped for that day (my then-oven ran at least 150F cool, so options were limited), but I remember seeing a display of meyer lemons and thinking they were so…exotic. I had heard of meyer lemons, of course, but never seen them in the wild (er, Cobble Hill grocery store). Out of curiosity, I put a couple in my cart. I couldn’t begin to tell you what I did with them, but that is the probably-tedious story of how I came to love meyer lemons.
Fast forward nine years and I have used meyer lemons many, many times. I see them in every store this time of year, and while I no longer think of them as exotic, I always look forward to adding their orange-lemon flavor to my bakes. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I only have one lone meyer lemon recipe in my 
Well, consider that oversight rectified. Today’s Meyer Lemon Drizzle Cakes celebrate everything that is wonderful about this winter citrus. There’s meyer lemon zest in the batter, the cakes are soaked in a sticky meyer lemon syrup, and the cakes are topped with a thick meyer lemon icing drizzle. Yesssss.
This recipe is based off the 
But before we get to icing, let’s talk syrup! After baking, these cakes are soaked with a meyer lemon simple syrup. To make it, just combine equal volumes of meyer lemon juice and granulated sugar over low heat, stirring just until the sugar dissolves. Easy.
While the cakes are still warm, poke ‘em full of holes. I like to use a thin, flexible knife to keep them inconspicuous, but a skewer will work. Whatever you use, poke it through to the bottom. Then pour over that syrup. You’ll think it’s too much, or that it’ll make your cakes soggy, but it won’t. It’ll just make them extra moist and dense and outrageously delicious. This is the good stuff.
Last but not least, let’s talk about the drizzle. It’s a just a simple icing—two ingredients, one bowl, no mixer—but it’s the crowning glory on these tea cakes. Once the soaked cakes are cool, set them on a cooling rack and pour the icing down the center. The cakes’ slight domes should help the icing to “spread” itself, but you can coax it with the back of a spoon, too. It’ll drip down the sides a bit, but should be thick enough that most of it stays on top. The icing will set quickly, which is a good thing because you’re going to want to dig right in.
Meyer Lemon Drizzle Cake is good on the first day. Very good, even. But if you have the patience, you should wait a day or two to have a slice. The cakes become even more tender and the orange-lemon flavor intensifies over time, making those day-old slices absolutely heavenly.
I, however, have no patience around Meyer Lemon Drizzle Cake.
If you are looking for an apple cake with brown sugar and warming spices, this isn’t the one. (
If, however, you’re looking for a buttery, almost custard-like cake with only a teaspoon of vanilla extract to distract from the flavor of tender fresh apples, you’ve come to the right blog.
Meet the French Apple Cake. It’s easy. It’s elegant. It’s French home-baking at its finest.
This little cake is perfect for the upcoming holidays (or just any ol’ day) because it requires minimal effort and delivers big time. Also, it requires exactly nine ingredients (ten, if you include the confectioner’s sugar) and there’s an 80% chance you have all of them already.
There’s no need to soften any butter either, so you can conceivably have this in the oven in under 20 minutes. You won’t even need to break out your mixer!
This beauty bakes up in about 45 minutes, and since it doesn’t require frosting or filling or anything more than a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, it only needs a 15 minute rest before you can release it from its springform and slice it up.
You read all that correctly. If you crank the oven right now, you can be eating French Apple Cake in 80 minutes.
I’d start moving toward the kitchen, if I were you.
Raspberry Coffee Cake—it’s what’s for breakfast this weekend.
e2 bakes brooklyn 