Cranberry Walnut Crumb Cakes

Notes about the recipe: These sunny, seductive little cakes are perfect mouthfuls of coffeecake from the golden crumb to the zingy cranberry bits to the browned, chunky topping that crumbles apart in your mouth. A basket of these is equally good for breakfast, teatime, or as an autumnal dessert for Thanksgiving. Cranberries are indigenous to America and are harvested in the fall by flooding their fields with water. Each berry contains a bubble of air which causes it to float, float right off the branches of their bush. The only step left is to skim all the glissening garnet colored berries off the surface of the water--and they've already had their bath! All the old baking books in my collection include page after page of coffeecake recipes. Back then, the midmorning coffee break a stimulating cup and a bite of something sweet was a given. Don't we still deserve a little treat to get us through the rest of the day? Everything about the recipe can be done in advance, right down to filling the cups with batter. Just don't sprinkle on the topping (which you can make literally months in advance and keep in the freezer) until just before you bake.