Mom’s Classic Coffee Cake
It’s a staple brunch treat! My Mom’s Classic Coffee Cake is a tried and true recipe and is exactly what you’d expect. It’s fluffy, soft, sweet, moist, and topped with a sweet cinnamon streusel. Simple, easy, and so delicious.
You’ll also love our Easy Homemade Apple Fritters!
It’s finally here! After posting on my Instagram stories a poll to see whether or not you all wanted my Mom’s Classic Coffee Cake recipe, and the results were a resounding YES, here it is! This is the coffee cake of my childhood. Every single holiday, from Mother’s Day to Christmas my mom always had this classic coffee cake waiting for us. It’s so incredibly easy to make and so moist and fluffy. No dense dry crumb cake here – this one is a tried and true loved and devoured coffee accompaniment dream.
What is Coffee Cake?
My husband’s exact question to me when I started making this recipe. Having not grown up with it, his experiences with it were what he saw with the other pastries behind the glass at a local coffee shop. Very simply, a classic coffee cake is a single-layer cake that’s made from flour, butter, and sugar and served with coffee or tea. No coffee in it, just the perfect simple sweet cake to serve with it. Crumb Cake is another kind of cake similar to coffee cake, but it typically has a much thicker layer of streusel on top of the cake, while most coffee cakes, like my mom’s, have a much greater cake to streusel ratio.
While the traditional cake baking in this house is usually done by my husband, My Mom’s Classic Coffee Cake is so simple and easy to make that anyone can make it!
Ingredients Needed
I bet you already have everything you need in your pantry, for this one.
- Flour – We use all-purpose flour for this recipe, but you could also use your favorite gluten-free flour, too!
- Sugar – A white granulated is best for this recipe.
- Butter – We use salted butter, but if all you have is unsalted, that’s fine, too. Then we would just suggest adding a pinch of kosher salt to the recipe.
- Eggs – Essential for providing the necessary structure for the cake.
- Milk – We use 2% because that’s what we always have on hand, but you could also use 1% or whole milk, too.
- Vanilla Extract – Have you made your own, yet?
- Baking Powder – The coffee cake’s leavening agent.
- Brown Sugar, Cinnamon, Nutmeg – For your sweet cinnamon streusel!
Step-by-Step Instructions
Cream your butter and sugar
This is one of the most important steps to ensuring that your coffee cake has the right light and fluffy texture. Creaming adds little pockets of air and that aeration is what gives it that perfect texture. We use our favorite hand mixer for this, but you can also use your stand mixer or get a great arm workout in by doing it by hand with a fork.
Tips for Creaming Butter and Sugar
About 65ºF is what you’re shooting for. This is a big one. If your butter is too cold, it will not blend with the sugar right and you won’t be able to get the right smooth consistency. If the butter is too hot, or even worse melted, then you’re going to create a frothy kind of a mixture and that will ultimately result in your cake collapsing or having a heavy thick crumb.
Properly creamed butter and sugar should only take about 2-3 minutes with your mixer on medium. Start on low so you don’t blast your sugar all over the place, and then slowly turn it up to medium.
Use a much larger bowl than you think you’ll need to give you the space you need to cream the sugar and butter together.
You’ll know your butter and sugar are properly creamed when it’s turned to a pale yellow color and is creamy. Under creamed will look white and gritty. Overcreamed will look greasy.
Add sifted flour and baking powder and create a fine crumb
Is sifting the flour a requirement? No. There are some arguments about whether or not sifting flour is even worth the effort. For this classic coffee cake where fluffy is the goal, in my opinion, any additional aeration is worth it. Plus, you don’t need a special flour sifter (although they are pretty cool), all you really need is a fine-mesh sieve.
Another bonus of sifting is then the flour will be nice and light and perfect for mixing it into the creamed butter and sugar to a fine crumb mixture. I find that using your hands for this step is the easiest.
Set aside some of the crumbs and then finish the batter
Once you’ve created a nice fine crumbed mixture, reserve some for your streusel, and then finish making the batter by adding the milk, whisked eggs, and vanilla extract.
Create streusel and add batter to the pan
Grease a baking pan well and add your batter, then with the reserved crumbs, make a super easy cinnamon sugar crumble topping.
Bake!
You can make this in either a 9X13 pan or an 8X8 for thicker slices. Personally, I prefer the thicker pieces as it makes this classic coffee cake feel much more like a nice big piece of cake.
Absolutely perfect with your favorite cup of coffee or tea!
Mom’s Classic Coffee Cake, it’s nothing super fancy or crazy, but instead, it’s a basic but absolutely delicious coffee cake that’s fluffy and soft and has all of the sweet sugary cinnamon flavors you want from a big ol’ slice.
Or two!
This recipe is great to make ahead or freeze, and it’ll always be welcome at any brunch gathering. Add your own flair by finishing it with your favorite icing, too. Add your own twists or keep my Mom’s Classic Coffee Cake as it is, no matter what you do, enjoy! And as always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think. Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
Mom’s Classic Coffee Cake
Equipment
- Baking Pan 8X8 or 9X13
- Hand mixer optional
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup salted butter
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 300 g
- 2 cups all purpose flour 270 g
- 2 teaspoons baking powder 9 g
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup milk 2% or 1%
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Struesel
- 3/4 cup reserved crumble
- 1/2 cup brown sugar packed, 109 g
- 2 tablespoons butter melted
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- pinch nutmeg
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar either with a hand mixer. Start on low and then continue to cream on medium speed for 2-3 minutes until it is a pale yellow color and creamy. If it's gritty it's undercreamed and if it's greasy it is over creamed.
- Sift flour with baking powder into the bowl with the creamed butter and sugar. Use your hands to working it all into fine crumbs.
- Take 3/4 cup of crumble mixture and reserve for the struesel.
- Add eggs, milk, and vanilla extract to the rest of the mixture and mix into a thick batter.
- Grease your baking pan (either 8×8 or 9×13) and add batter to the pan in an even layer.
- Add melted butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the bowl with the reserved crumble and mix until well combined and crumbly.
- Sprinkle the struesel topping evenly over the batter in the baking pan.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes for a 9X13 pan or 45-50 minutes for an 8X8 pan, or until a toothpick or cake tester pulls clean from the center.
- Serve warm and enjoy!
Coffee cake is a soft, tender cake often topped with a crumbly streusel, perfect for enjoying alongside a cup of coffee with its subtle sweetness and warm, comforting flavors.
It is perfect with a cup of coffee!
Topping came out like a paste, tried to save it, to no avail. Very disappointed in this recipe.
So sorry to hear that, Rob. Paste after it was baked or before you baked it? It sounds like there was too much butter and not enough brown sugar and reserved crumble.
I agree! Mine also came out like paste! When baking, topping sunk into cake! I used all ingredients as written with accurate measurements. Big disappointment and will not make again,
I’m so sorry to hear this, J! I see why, unfortunately there was a mistake in the streusel as it said only 1/4 cup of brown sugar when it should have been 1/2. I’m so sorry about that!
Tasty, but the struesel topping didn’t turn into a crumble for me. Once all the ingredients were added to the reserve, it just turned into a liquid paste. I ended up topping the batter with it and doing a swirl. Unfortunately, that ended up falling to the bottom of the cake during cooking. Not sure what went wrong, but it still had a lovely flavor.
Hi Tracy, is it possible to use self raising flour for this recipe
Hi Deb! Yes, just omit the baking powder 🙂 Enjoy!
I loved the simplicity of your recipe and that it was your Moms. I have no idea what I did wrong but the crumb topping was very wet and I had to sort of blob it on the top.. It’s still in the oven, I’m sure it will still be delicious. I have rechecked my ingredients and the only possibility is that I may have accidentally put 1/3 cup of sugar instead 1/4, could that have caused the problem. I won’t give up!
Great recipe. I made them in cupcake tins. They are fantastic, didn’t tweak the recipe in any way. Oh, except I had imitation vanilla so doubled the measurement on that to try to make up for it 🙂 A scant 1/4 cup of batter in each lined cup, use up all the crumble evenly, bake at 350, about 30 minutes, use the toothpick test here. They fluffed up and spilled over just enough to give nice big muffin like tops. Let cool in tins on top of baking racks until you can pick them up without breaking the tops off.
Thank you for this!! I put this one right into my permanent collection 🙂
I love to hear it, Monique! Thanks so much for sharing!!
I’ve been looking all over for coffee cake from Aunt Jemima and I can’t find the coffee cake anywhere instead all I find is that nasty cinnamon swirl! I miss coffee cake sooo much it was one of my fav go toos and since she doesn’t sell it anymore im now just looking it up and never thought of making it myself bc I don’t think it will turn out correctly for me but I came across ur recipe and I have to say it looks like the best one out of all of the ones I looked at bc they have sour cream and white icing on top or brown throughout and just not my kind but ur pics looks perfect so imma try it for the first time and i hope i can get it right bc boy do i miss this. Thank you for sharing reg coffee cake and I don’t see a save button so hopefully I can still find it in the future.
Hi Adam!! I hope this lived up to your expectations!! Thanks so much for reaching out!
Adam, Here’s the recipe:
Recipe from Aunt Jemima’s Temptilatin’ Recipes and Menus
QUICK COFFEE CAKE
(page 15)
Makes an 8-inch square cake
Time: 25 Minutes
Temperature: 375°
BATTER
1 cup Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons melted shortening
TOPPING
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/3 cup chopped nutmeats
Beat egg, add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
Add milk and melted shortening.
Add the Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix and mix well; spread in greased 8-inch square pan.
Combine topping ingredients; sprinkle on top of batter and bake in a moderate oven (375° F.) 25 to 30 minutes.
Apple Coffee Cake
Cover top of batter with pared, sliced apples before adding topping.
Simple, delicious and perfect classic cake. Love those recipes that are in the family from generations.