This Cinnamon Coffee Cake recipe is moist, buttery, and full of cinnamon flavor. It’s perfect as an afternoon snack, a breakfast pastry or an after dinner dessert!
A homemade cinnamon coffee cake recipe doesn’t get much better than this Cinnamon Coffee Cake with Streusel Crumb Topping!
While I am generally happy to share every recipe that I post, there are some that I am REALLY excited to share- and this is one of them. I’m not a huge breakfast eater, but one thing that I can never resist is coffee cake. Take a look at Coffee Works website where you can learn more ideas of how to enjoy even more your daily coffee.
This is also why I rarely ever buy or make it- I can’t stay out of it.
I love the general idea behind a coffee cake recipe. Someone clearly really wanted to eat some sort of spice or fruit laden cake at 7 AM, but could still hear their mother’s voice wheedling at them, “You don’t eat cake for breakfast!”
“Hush Mom, this is COFFEE cake. Its totally different. You eat it in the morning with coffee! It’s breakfast! Its practically health food.”
I’m not going to sit here and lie to anyone and tell you that this moist coffee cake is health food. It is most definitely not. I WILL tell you that this is the best cinnamon coffee cake and came out exactly the way that I had hoped. It has a light, buttery crumb, but yet is still somehow just a little dense.
There is a ribbon of cinnamon filling through the middle and it is piled with a cinnamon streusel on top. It DOES go perfectly with coffee… and ice cream too. Don’t worry- I won’t tell Mom.
What is Coffee Cake, exactly?
Coffee cake is a butter-based cake that, contrary to what the name implies, does NOT contain coffee. Its somewhere between a regular cake and a pound cake in terms of weight and texture. It’s not supposed to be over-the-top sweet, and is meant to be paired with a cup of coffee- hence the name!
What you’ll need for this breakfast coffee cake recipe:
- Hand mixer – Having a hand mixer really comes in handy for making your recipes. Be sure to grab this [easyazon_link identifier=”B001CH0ZLE” locale=”US” tag=”gogogogo03-20″]Hand Mixer[/easyazon_link] to get your recipes made right!
- Mixing bowl – These bowls are perfect for mixing up any recipe and even come in three different sizes. Get your [easyazon_link identifier=”B00LGLHUA0″ locale=”US” tag=”gogogogo03-20″]3-Piece Glass Mixing Bowl Set[/easyazon_link] here.
- Food processor – I recommend using a food processor to make your toppings required in this recipe. This [easyazon_link identifier=”B00755KNCS” locale=”US” tag=”gogogogo03-20″]Food Processor[/easyazon_link] should do the trick and even has dishwasher safe parts!
- Baking pan – This [easyazon_link identifier=”B001PKUXN8″ locale=”US” tag=”gogogogo03-20″]9 by 9 Inch Covered Pan[/easyazon_link] is great for any kind of baking. You’ll get some great use out of it!
If you Like This homemade Cinnamon Coffee Cake recipe, you’ll also like easy dessert recipes:
NOTE: after multiple readers telling me that they find the topping to be too heavy on the flour, I am amending the topping to reduce the flour by 1/4 cup and increasing the butter by one tablespoon.
Update (5/6/2016): Alright. As I keep getting comments that say that the batter is too thick and the cake is too dry and the topping has too much flour and its too sweet (and yet simultaneously not sweet enough!), I decided to remake this and test the recipe for the third time. It came out just like it did the first and second times I made it.
This recipe is based off my Blueberry Buckle with Streusel Topping, which is always a major success and I have never faced any complaints. The only thing that I changed was using softened butter in the topping, rather than cold butter, which I have now amended in the recipe ingredients. I’m sitting here and eating a piece of it and wondering why anyone would want this either more or less sweet.
I don’t think its dry in any way- in fact the cake is quite moist. Its a butter based cake batter, so its not going to be runny like a boxed cake mix would be. As I state in the instructions, using an offset spatula makes spreading the batter over the filling much easier. I also took pictures at each step, so you can see what everything should look like along the way. These are below the instructions.
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Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 stick butter softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 3/4 cup milk
Filling
- 3 tablespoons butter softened
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Topping
- 5 tablespoon butter softened
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- In the bowl of a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar, scraping down the sides occasionally. Add the vanilla and egg, mix in.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add one half of it to the mixer, and when mostly combined, add the milk. Once the milk is mostly incorporated, add the rest of the flour.
- To make filling: in a small bowl, pinch together the softened butter, flour, sugar and cinnamon until soft crumbs form.
- To make topping: add the butter, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon to a food processor and pulse until coarse crumbs form (You can cut in with forks or a pastry cutter, but I am not patient enough for that!).
- Grease a 9x9 baking pan. Pour in ½ of cake batter, and spread to all four corners. Sprinkle the filling over top, then pour in remaining cake batter, and spread carefully across the top, disturbing the filling layer as little as possible (an offset spatula works well for this).
- Sprinkle the topping over the top and press lightly so it adheres.
- Bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool to warm on wire rack before serving.
Notes
Cori says
I’ve made this recipe a few times and I really like it. The first time I used a food processor for the topping, as instructed. The second time I used my “magic bullet” to get it started and then went in with a fork. I also added an extra tablespoon of butter the second time. I thought the topping was much less dry and floury, and more crumble-like when I did it the second time around
Shirley Coy says
This has become my go to coffee cake recipe. I have an egg for baked goods exchange with a neighbor. She and her husband loved it. I took one to a dinner we were invited to. THEY loved. It is easy to make and always garners rave reviews. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 5 stars in my book!
Shelby says
I definitely felt like the top was too floury. Adding more butter and less flour would probably be a better idea. I’ll do that next time.
Lori says
I actually only used the “filler” and “topping” parts of this recipe as I already have a tried and true batter recipe and was in search of a good streusel. Both were perfectly balanced for texture and amount of sweetness. Thank you!
Judy says
Can you share your batter recipe? Thanks in advance
Lacy says
Great recipe!
I made this but did a couple things different, in true Lacy fashion. I used a spring form pan, because i think baked things out of spring form pans are just so cute! And it cools down faster. I also used too much mix on the bottom. Next time i might even make 2 batches of filling with the same amount of crumbs, and increase the cooking time. I also left the topping on the counter while i ran around for too long and it melted together, so do that part faster than i did 🙂
Christy says
This is a delicious cake! The actual cake is so tender and light and fluffy. Just dreamy. I only gave it 4 stars and not five because there was entirely too much filling and topping for the amount of cake batter. I halved the suggested amounts of filling and topping and had a truly delicious coffee cake. It was just the right amount of sweet. Anything more would have been far sweeter that I would have enjoyed and I am not one to shy away from sweet! I am saving this recipe and anticipate making it again and again with the adjustments. It is a very good streusel topping. Not dry, just perfect. Thanks for the recipe.
Sharon says
Darn wished I read your comment first! Hope it’s not too sweet, I made the actual recipe but I’m sure it’s still going to taste good!
Diana says
This is my family’s favorite coffee cake! It gets devoured every time I make it. Thanks for a fantastic recipe!!!
Michele says
Just made this coffee cake and was so delicious! Came out perfect, crunchy topping, great filling and the cake was perfect. Batter was thicker than I thought but I scooped it in pan and it came out great! Wish I could post a picture as it is restaurant or bakery quality.
Sara says
Great recipe and the coffee cake turned out amazing! Very fluffy and delicious. Will definitely use this recipe again! Thank you
Emmy savonin says
First time making coffee cake and it was pretty good! It wasn’t sweet enough for me, so I made some icing . And it turned out even yummier! Thank you for the recipe. I will be making again and maybe adding a little more sugar into the dough
Cat says
This is very good! The only thing that prevented me from giving 5 stars are a couple things: there are no alternate cooking times offered for different size pans. I did not have the pan size listed, so I used a loaf pan, which required an extra 25 minutes of baking time. Also, the amount of filling and topping is far more than required. Half the amount would be more than sufficient for each. The full amounts are overkill, there’s no need for an inch of sugar in the middle and on top. Otherwise very good.
Jane says
A lot of winging and complaining in your comments. Next time maybe just create a recipe on your own so you won’t be so critical. Shees. EXCELLENT RECIPE, ACTUALLY!! OMGOODNESS!!
Julie says
You talk about the amount of batter being too much and topping being too much BUT YOU used the wrong size pan 🤦🏼♀️ so YOU could have changed the amount of ingredients to fit the size pan you were using and NOT chastised her for your mistakes. js
KATHY D says
Topping may have been too much because you used a pan with half the width required?
Micalene Malatesta says
Thank you for putting the measurement of how much flower and stuff that you need. I have been searching all over for a recipe that has the measurement. I can’t tell you how stressful it is to come across recipes that don’t have any measurement of how much to use it just tells you what you need to make it and how to make it no measurement
Donna Weber says
After quite a few coffee cakes, this one was the closest I could find to my mother’s recipe… Her was courser, which I loved, but it had lots of butter… So, with this recipe a I was even more generous with the butte , as in dollops over the crumb topping…
If I were a true baker, I would know how to make it more course or dense…In my world, coffee cakes shouldn’t be light and fluffy… Maybe someone will make a few suggestions…
Sonia says
I made this for a friend, and was told “This coffee cake is amazing! Like insane amazing!! It’s my new favorite!”
I can only attest that it smelled divine while it was cooking.
Barbara says
Perfect! This is a decedent and delightfuly delish cake. Just what i was hankering for. Nicely done!
I used a round springform pan…. baked beautifully.
Laura Busker says
I was looking for a copycat recipe for hostess Cinnamon streusel cakes… This recipe won my heart.. it was so easy to make.. it turned out light and fluffy with just the right amount of cinnamon and sugar..
Mary Walen says
Excellent and easy can’t get out it out of the oven
fast enough and it starts to disappears good flavor with cinnamon .
Brandi says
Came out perfect, moist and so delicious. As others have mentioned I also didn’t end up using all of the crumble topping, the filling yes, but the topping I just saved what I had leftover. I spread an even layer on top enough so that no more cake batter was visible, and patted down as you said. Thank you for this recipe, I couldn’t find my childhood one and this pretty much filled the spot so i’m saving it. Thanks again for sharing!
Aneela says
Wow, this cinnamon coffee cake looks absolutely scrumptious! 🍰✨ The streusel crumb topping is calling my name, and I can almost smell the heavenly aroma of cinnamon just by looking at the pictures. I’m curious, have you ever tried adding any additional elements to the filling or topping, such as nuts or a dash of nutmeg, for an extra layer of flavor? Also, do you have any tips for ensuring the crumb topping stays perfectly crisp and doesn’t become too soggy after a day or two? I’m eager to try this recipe and possibly experiment with a few twists of my own! Thank you for sharing such a delightful treat! 😊🍽️
Donna Johnson says
Is 1 stick of bullets equal to 1 cup. Thank you.Do