Apple-Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake

I had a bit of a rough week this week, and I kept thinking that I just wanted to bake something. I wanted it to be something relatively simple and not a multi-day baking project. I found the list of cakes that the HCB group has made and that Marie made prior to starting the group and thought it would be good to pick one of those. I also wanted it to choose something that Daniel would like. When I showed him the picture of the coffee cake he said that looked really good so I decided that's what I would make. I went to the store earlier in the week and bought a Granny Smith apple and walnuts, but then I never had time to make it during the week. By Saturday I was feeling better but still wanted to make the cake. So, after doing a bunch of stuff outside in the morning - running, planting flowers, and putting up Halloween decorations I finally got started on the cake in the afternoon.

You start out by making the crumb topping and then setting that aside in the fridge while you slice the apples and mix up the batter.

I didn't measure my apples when I sliced them. I realized when I started laying them on the cake that they should have been a bit thinner. After slicing you put a little lemon juice on them to keep them from turning brown.

The batter was very straight forward to mix up, and then you layer it in the pan - 2/3 batter, part of the crumb topping, apples, and remaining batter.

While it bakes part way you're supposed to form 1/4 inch balls of the crumb topping. You're supposed to do that for a third of the crumb topping, but that was a little too tedious for me. I might have done one fifth of the crumbs. The rest were smaller crumbs. I don't think that mattered that much though. It still tasted great and looked pretty good. The outside of the cake was a tiny bit dry, but the inside was super moist. My husband mostly approved, but I did find out afterwards that he doesn't really like cooked apples. Hopefully he'll approve of this weekend's HCB cake - it's all chocolate.