This berry crumb cake is a lovely light and moist cake, studded with berries and topped with a sweet cinnamon sugar crumb topping.
This crumb cake recipe has been a favourite of mine for a long time. It is always perfect and can be made with just about any berries. This time, I made a very berry version, with raspberries and blackberries. I love the way they burst with flavour in the cake. You could add blueberries. In fact, you could make it with just blueberries. Or just blackberries. You get the idea – use whatever fruit you like. You’ll need about a pint.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Berries – I’ve used blackberries and raspberries here. You could also add blueberries or make it with just one type of berry.
Nuts – I added some chopped pecans to my cake, just because I had some that I wanted to use up. Walnuts are always good or you can skip the nuts altogether and still have a wonderful cake.
Recipe Tips
I made this cake by using the gram measurements and weighing out the dry ingredients and if you have a kitchen scale, that’s the way to go. If you don’t have a kitchen scale yet, I would really, really recommend that you consider adding one to your kitchen. They are so economical (you can get a great one for around $10!) and they are just so useful. Not only do they take the guesswork out of measuring, they open up a whole world of recipes to you (those ones that you’ve seen that are only in metric and you couldn’t make because you didn’t have a scale).
Get the Recipe: Very Berry Crumb Cake
Ingredients
Topping:
- 5 Tablespoons (37 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (100 g) white sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 cup (57 g) unsalted butter, cold
- Pinch of salt
Cake:
- 1 3/4 cups (210 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt, reduce to 1/4 tsp if using salted butter
- 1/4 cup (57 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150 g) white granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pint fresh berries, I used 1/2 raspberries, 1/2 blackberries
- 1/2 cup (113 ml) milk
- 1/2 cup (113 ml) nuts, chopped, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease an 8-inch springform pan and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.
- Prepare the topping: Whisk together the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Cu in the butter in with a pastry blender, fork or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
- For the cake: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt until combined. Set aside. In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugar and lemon zest together until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Beat in 1/3 of the dry ingredients just until combined. Add 1/2 of the milk. Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredients, followed by the remainder of the milk. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix until combined. Using a spatula, carefully fold the berries in to the batter.
- Spoon batter into prepared pan and smooth a bit so that it is relatively flat. If using nuts, scatter them on top, then sprinkle the prepared topping evenly over-top.
- Bake in heated oven for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan on a cooling rack for at least 15-20 minutes. Run a knife around the inside edge, then carefully loosen and remove the outer ring. You can transfer the cake to a serving plate by loosening the parchment from the metal bottom and sliding on to a serving plate.
Adapted from a Maida Heatter recipe
More Crumb Cake Recipes to Love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
Hi Jennifer, i would love to make this for a Christmas coffee gathering. Would fresh cranberries be a good substitute in December? It looks so delicious 😋.
Hi Bonnie and yes, I think it would be lovely! The over-all cake would be less sweet over-all, with the tart cranberries, of course. You could add a little pear or apple if you like. To bring a bit more sweetness and both of those pair with cranberries nicely.
Love this so much. I love berries and this one is the best I’ve seen! Thanks for sharing your amazing gift with us.
So glad to hear, Jean :) Thanks so much!
Hi, thanks for sharing!
I would like to bake a slightly bigger cake, so planning to use a 9″ springform pan and adjust the temperature of the oven.
I made this for my bunco group the other night and the ladies loved it! Thank you for another wonderful recipe! I chopped up some strawberries for mine.
So glad, Beth and I bet it was lovely with strawberries :)
This cake looks absolutely scrumptious! Perfect with afternoon coffee.
Thanks so much, Jenny :)
I just love crumb cakes! Such a beautiful recipe here!
Thanks Katrina :)
Oh goodness, I have a huge weakness for crumb cakes, and this one looks BERRY delicious! (<– Sorry I had to!) I love that you used a mix of berries in here Jennifer! The cake looks so light and delicious, while the crumb looks just heavenly! I wish I had a few slices of this to go with my coffee this morning! Cheers, friend!
Lol! It is berry delicious, Cheyanne :) Thanks so much!
As always, Jennifer, I am sitting here wide-eyed admiring your beautiful photos! It’s so nice to have a few free minutes to catch up on my visiting and I could hardly wait to get here and see what you’ve been up to.
I will use some frozen Barrie Hill Farms berries for this – they are fabulous. Yes, I’m going to bake! How can I not do this? It’s perfect. Well, I will buy the ingredients and take them to my sister-in-law and watch her make it but I’ll be studying. You’ve left me speechless! (a rarity, for sure)
Thanks so much, Robyn and yes, this would be lovely with those frozen berries! Enjoy :)
What a gorgeous cake! I baked a crumb cake today and I can’t stop eating the topping.. this looks equally as delicious! :)
Thanks Laura and yes, I love picking the crumb off too :) Can’t wait to see your cake!
Crumb cake is the way to my heart Jennifer! I bet this one is delicious with the added berries! All Jersey girls LOVE their crumb cake!
Thanks Mary Ann and I had no idea that crumb cake was a Jersey girl thing. How fun! :)
Wish I had this in front of me right now…I’ve got a lemon crumb cake in the works inspired by Tricia’s latest! Wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived near each other and could share :) Speaking of sharing, I’m off to pin and post on fb, love this!
Thanks Sue and can’t wait to see your lemon cake, too!
I know I’m going to love this recipe. It’s beautiful and loaded with juicy berries. It just doesn’t get any better than this! Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Pinning and sharing!
Thanks so much, Tricia :) I was feeling the need for some berry baking and this really hit the spot!