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
J Marshall says
Absolutely the best cinnamon cake ever!!
Easy to make
Donna Johnson says
Oops. 1 stick of butter.
Mary E Fox says
My batter was so thick I had to scoop it out. What did I do wrong?
It was delicious but the center was not done after 65 minutes.
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Betty Freano says
This is my first coffee cake and it was fantastic. I disagree that there is too much filling and topping. I think it was just the right amount. I will definitely be making this again.
Kat says
Made it a couple days ago and we loved it. My food processor is broken so I had to do everything by hand but it turned out great. Will definitely be making it again!
Nadine says
Absolutely amazing I made this 3 times we love it.Thank you GodBless
Judi says
I chose this recipe because it looked good and the amount of butter and flour just right! I did cut the sugar down to 1/2 in the batter and 1/2 in the streusel. Used brown sugar. Used buttermilk (1 cup) added 1 cup of blueberries! Baked 40 minutes! Absolutely delicious!
Jill says
No one cares that you changed it. Comments should be about the recipe as posted. If you didn’t make the recipie as posted how can you comment on it?
CQ says
So you pretty much made something different?
Donna Johnson says
Is one stick of butter equal to 1 cup. Thanks. There’s different size sticks now.
Deanna says
One stick is 1/2 a cup
Susan says
No.
A cup of butter is two sticks.
It usually shows ounces and pound increments on the stick wrapper.
CQ says
It takes 2 sticks of butter to equal 1 cup.
Michelle Davis says
1/2 c is one stick
Mark says
This recipe was pretty off the mark IMO. I’m saw some comments stated the recipe comes out dry, too thick of a batter and too much flour. All of these I can attest, are true. I had to add an extra egg and some extra milk to make it even spreadable. The bake turned out great after that change was made, but the extra egg and about 1/3 cup of milk was absolutely necessary.
Secondly, the recipe for this topping is just off. It tasted like eating cinnamon flour. My family agreed with these takes.
Constance West says
The timing on the recipe was not correct. For this cake to be completely done and a tooth pick to come out clean it took 1 hour and 15 minutes for it to be completely done in a BRAND NEW oven.
One less star because of that.
Also the topping TOO crumbly and needed an extra tablespoon of butter to adhere.
Cindy says
Way too much filling, not enough cake batter, and the crumble topping needed an extra tablespoon of butter. Also a 9×9 pan? Who owns that size? Sorry I’m being picky on that one. It tastes pretty good, but needs improvements to be great.
Kathy says
I have 4 9×9 pans! Aging increases baking stuff😂
Vic says
Thrilled dough. Added apples to filling and topping. Sprinkled the top with oats! It was absolutely delicious and perfect. 9by13 cake pan. Butter and flour pan, will try parchment next time. Thank you for the recipe. Will be a go too!
Kim says
This is my new go-to coffee cake! So moist, and the crunchy top is to die for. Thanks for sharing!
Kimberly says
This recipe is devine. For those that say the topping is too much are not familiar with what a coffee cake should be. The topping is the best part of this recipe beside the filling and the cake. OK all of it is great. Bonus, it makes your home smell delicious while it is baking. I make this recipe every weekend because my family can’t get enough of it. In order to make it fast in the morning I mix up the filling and topping ahead of time and put them in the fridge overnight and leave the butter out to soften. The cake is light and fluffy and goes well with coffee in the morning or ice cream at night.
Rosemary W says
I halved the entire recipe (batter, filling, and topping) and made muffins–they cooked in the same amount of time and turned out perfect (held their shape and were easy to remove). So delicious and easy to make. Thanks for the easy-to-follow recipe.
Sheila Covey says
This is heads up the best coffee cake I have ever made. Thank you for sharing this recipe
Joshua says
So I’ve made this coffee cake twice now and both times the taste and consistency was excellent: fluffy and perfect. That said, the batter is entirely too thick for spreading and borders on unmanageable.
Mary E Fox says
Wet your finger tips with water. It spreads like a dream.
Lorna Campbell says
I wet a spatula with a a bit of water to help spread it then used my fingers for the edges.
Taffy says
The coffee cake was delicious however the batter is entirely too thick and incredibly difficult to spread.
mariana says
first time making coffee cake and had so much fun! recipe was super easy to follow and the pictures were a great help! the ratio was perfect, in my opinion.
Rodney Sykes says
This recipe looks like a delicious and easy way to make a classic coffee cake! I love the idea of using a streusel crumb topping for added texture and flavor. I’ll definitely try pouring the batter over the filling, as suggested in the tips section.
Donna Johnson says
Is one stick of butter equal to 1 cup. Thanks. There’s different size sticks now.
Chey says
1 stick of butter = 8 tablespoons for this recipe. 1 stick also is a 4oz weight measure of 113grams.
Jill says
A standard stick of butter is actually a half cup/ 8 tablespoons. By weight it is 1/4 lb of butter.
Pam says
One stick is 8 tablespoons, which equals 1/2 cup.
Bethany says
One stick of butter would be equal to one half cup. She asks for one stick so I assume she means half a cup.
Dana says
1 stick is equal to half a cup
Dave says
8 tablespoons or 1/2 cup = 1 stick