Coffee Cake Recipe

This coffee cake is downright delicious! It combines light-as-air cake with a sweet brown sugar pecan filling and a crumbly cinnamon sugar streusel topping. It's simply the best coffee cake you can make!

Coffee cake is one of those treats that is just as delicious for breakfast as it is for dessert. This one is so good that you'll find yourself sneaking a few pieces at both times of the day. Trust me, this streusel coffee cake is so delicious you'll crave another piece before you even finish your first!

Why You'll Love This Coffee Cake Recipe

The flavor and texture is amazing. This recipe creates a moist, tangy, and sweet cake with a brown sugar pecan filling and cinnamon crumble topping that just melts in your mouth. It seriously gets better and better with every single bite. 

Everyone loves it. Every time I make this when I'm hosting or need to bring something to a friend's house, everyone raves over it and says that it tastes as if I picked it up from a bakery! It's just that good.

It's simple to make. Even if you've never made coffee cake before, you'll find this recipe's process simple. Seriously, the hardest part is waiting for it to bake and smelling all of that cinnamony deliciousness coming from your oven. So, to keep yourself occupied, you can make this Starbucks gingerbread latte to go along with it!

Ingredients Needed

For the filling:

• Light brown sugar
• Chopped pecans- or any chopped nuts you want.
• Ground cinnamon

For the streusel crumb topping:

• Granulated sugar
• Salt
• All-purpose flour
• Cinnamon
• Butter- unsalted butter since we'll be adding salt.

For the decadent coffee cake:

• All-purpose flour
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Unsalted butter- you'll want it to be softened.
• Granulated sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Sour cream- or Greek yogurt.

By the way, this Pioneer Woman French toast casserole uses a lot of the same ingredients. So, if you're looking for a way to use some of them again, I highly recommend giving that recipe a shot next!

How To Make Coffee Cake

Step 1: Prepare The Filling & Topping

Before you get into the recipe, preheat the oven to 350°F (180ºC) and lightly grease a 10-inch springform or round pan with cooking spray. You can also line the pan with parchment paper instead of greasing it.

Take out a medium-sized bowl and add all of the filling ingredients to it - that would be the brown sugar, chopped pecans, and cinnamon. Give them a good mix until they somewhat combine, and set the bowl aside.

For the streusel crumb topping, mix the sugar, salt, flour, cinnamon, and melted butter in a medium bowl until they combine and form a grainy mixture. Then, once you've got that looking good, you can set this bowl aside for later.

Step 2: Make The Coffee Cake Batter

Start by mixing all of the dry ingredients - the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt - in a large bowl so they combine and set aside.

Then, you can take out another large bowl and cream the butter and sugar together with a hand - or stand mixer - until it's smooth. Next, add one egg at a time, along with the vanilla extract, and continue mixing until everything is well incorporated. 

Oonce you've got the dry and wet ingredients looking good, you can add the dry ingredient mixture into the bowl of wet ingredients, along with the yogurt - or sour cream - and mix everything together with a rubber spatula until they just combine into a coffee cake batter.

Step 3: Build the Coffee Cake

Pour half of the coffee cake batter into the prepared pan and then evenly top it with the filling mixture. Then, after you've done that, you can pour the remaining cake batter on top and finish it off by evenly sprinkling the crumb topping on the cake batter. 

Step 4: Bake The Coffee Cake

Finally, it's time to bake this delicious coffee cake! Put the coffee cake in the oven and let it bake for about 60 minutes. Also, just so you know, you'll want to check it halfway through baking and see how the top looks. If it's getting too brown, cover it with tin foil so the topping doesn’t burn.

Then, around the one-hour mark, you'll want to check the crumb cake by inserting a toothpick in the center of it and see if it comes out clean. If it does, it's done.

So, when that happens, you can let the cake cool for a few minutes, then slice it up, serve it with a cup of coffee or milk, and enjoy it!

Storage Instructions

If you bring this sour cream coffee cake to a friend's house or put it out when you're hosting, I doubt that you'll have any leftovers. Honestly, whenever I make this recipe, it's gone before I even have a chance to grab a second slice. 

Anyway, if you do end up with some leftovers, you can transfer the slices of cake to an airtight container and store them at room temperature for about two days or in the fridge for up to one week.

By the way, you can freeze coffee cake for up to 3 months if you want to keep it for even longer. Just put the cake in an airtight container - or wrap individual slices in plastic wrap - and keep them in a freezer-safe bag.

More Recipes

If you enjoyed this easy coffee cake, we have many more recipes just like it on the blog!

Give one of these delicious and easy recipes a try next:

• Brioche French toast casserole
• Honey cake recipe
• Ocean Spray cranberry bread
• Sweet potato muffins
• Sweet potato pound cake
• Churro cheesecake bars
• Chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting

Oh, and for even more deliciousness, don't forget to follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. We post new recipes on them every single day.

Continue to Content

Yield: 8 large servings

Coffee Cake Recipe

Print

This coffee cake is downright delicious! It combines light-as-air cake with a sweet brown sugar pecan filling and a crumbly cinnamon sugar streusel topping. It's simply the best coffee cake you can make!

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients

Filling:

• ¾ cup light brown sugar
• ½ cup chopped pecans
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Streusel crumb topping:

• 1 cup sugar
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp. cinnamon
• 6 tbsp. butter, melted

Coffee cake batter:

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¾ cup unsalted butter
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cups Greek yogurt or sour cream

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180ºC) and grease a 10-inch springform pan or large round pound cake pan.
2. Mix all filling ingredients in a bowl to combine. Set aside.
3. Mix all streusel topping ingredients in another bowl until grainy. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. 
5. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until soft. Add one egg at a time and the vanilla extract, mixing it until everything’s well incorporated. Add the flour mixture and Greek yogurt (or sour cream) to the bowl and mix until well combined.
6. Pour half of the cake batter into the prepared pan, top with the filling, and pour the other half of the cake batter in. Top with the streusel topping and place in the oven.
7. Bake for 60 minutes (check it halfway, if the topping is too brown, you can cover it with tin foil so it doesn’t burn). You will know when the cake is ready when inserting a toothpick, it comes out clean.

Nutrition Information:

Serving Size:

1 slice
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 580Total Fat: 22gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 0mgCarbohydrates: 83gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 11g