Sour Cream Coffee Cake

This Sour Cream Coffee Cake is the queen of the breakfast cakes! Super soft and moist with a great cinnamon crunch, this is the only coffee cake recipe you’ll need.

PIN IT FOR LATER!

For a little different twist on the coffee cake, you can also check out this Banana Coffee Cake with Honey Glaze or this Pumpkin Coffee Cake.

I am a total breakfast person. If I had it my way, I would have a big, elaborate, delicious breakfast every day. Not always in the morning (I love a good breakfast for dinner!), but breakfast foods are definitely my favorite.

I’ve mentioned this before on this blog, but my mom made breakfast every day growing up, except for Saturdays. Every other day, we would get a hot breakfast – anything from oatmeal, cream of wheat, pancakes, eggs, muffins…the list goes on and on. Back then, I don’t think I really realized just how lucky I was.

These days, I would love it if I was able to have breakfast like that every morning. And being a breakfast person, I do make sure to eat every morning, but it’s usually a protein shake, or a couple of eggs thrown on the stove while I am getting ready in the morning.

But the weekends – those are special. We actually have the time to relax and make wonderful breakfasts or a delicious brunch. And that is a perfect time for this Sour Cream Coffee Cake.

Ingredients

Butter: For this recipe, you’ll need room temperature butter for the cake, but cold butter for the streusel. I like to use unsalted butter.

Sugar: You’ll need granulated sugar for the cake.

Eggs: I use large eggs. Take them out of the refrigerator when you take the butter out, so that they will be at room temperature when you make the cake.

Sour Cream: Sour cream makes this cake have the best texture! Make sure and read the section below about why I like to use sour cream in baking.

Vanilla Extract: Pure vanilla extract is always best!

Flour: This cake calls for cake flour. But if you don’t have cake flour, you can use all-purpose flour. Cake flour will give the cake a more tender crumb, but the recipe works with all-purpose flour, as well.

Baking Powder and Baking Soda: You’ll want to use both powder and soda in this recipe. They both work to give the cake great texture and help to give it its rise.

Salt: The salt will give flavor and balance.

Brown Sugar: This is for the streusel. I like light brown sugar, but dark brown sugar will work, as well.

Cinnamon: You can’t skip the cinnamon! If you are making this in the fall or winter, try subbing in pumpkin pie spice for even more warmth.

Powdered Sugar: This is for the icing. No need to sift it, but I do like to run a whisk through it before adding the liquid.

Maple Syrup: This brings just a hint of maple to the icing. If you don’t have maple syrup, you could just use milk and a little bit of vanilla extract for flavor.

Milk: You will only need this if you want to thin out the icing.

How to Make Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Start by making your batter. Beat the sugar and butter together, then start adding in the eggs.

Add the sour cream and the vanilla, then beat until smooth.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the batter and stir just until combined. You don’t want to overmix.

Once you have made the batter, make the streusel filling.

Combine the sugar, flour, and cinnamon, then use a fork or a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the sugar mixture. You want to incorporate the butter pretty well – the pieces should be smaller than a pea.

Next you assemble the cake before baking. Start by adding 1/3 of the batter to the pan.

Then sprinkle half of the streusel over. Top that with another 1/3 of the batter.

Sprinkle on the remaining streusel, then the rest of the cake batter.

Bake the cake until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Once the cake has cooled, you can make the icing by whisking together the powdered sugar and maple syrup. Add milk, if needed, to thin it out. Drizzle this over the top of the coffee cake.

Sour Cream in Baking

If you’ve never used sour cream in baking, you are really missing out. There are two main reasons that sour cream is great for baking.

1. It’s higher fat content makes for a moist cake – which you always want. Especially with coffee cake. The texture is better and the cake will stay moist for longer. In fact, if stored correctly, this cake will still be moist 2-3 days later.
2. Sour cream works as an acid to activate the baking soda. That is not its most important use in this coffee cake, though, since it has both baking powder and baking soda. For this cake, it is primarily used for the texture of the cake.

Tips and Tricks

• The original recipe published here was made in a tube pan. If making in a tube pan, spoon half of the batter into the greased and floured tube pan. Sprinkle half the streusel, add the rest of the batter, then top with the remaining streusel. You can also bake this in a 9×13 pan.
• If you like nuts, add some chopped pecans to the streusel mixture.
• The reason I grease AND flour the pan is so that the coffee cake comes out of the pan easily. Don’t skip the flour – especially if you end up using a bundt pan.
• When making the streusel, make sure your butter is cold.
• Let the cake cool for 20-30 minutes before trying to remove it from the pan. If you try to remove it right after baking the cake, it will fall apart. I wait at least 20 minutes, and if the cake is breaking as I’m trying to remove it, I’ll wait even longer.
• You can skip the glaze, but it’s one of my favorite parts! I love the hint of maple, but if you don’t have maple syrup, you can use milk and a bit of vanilla extract.

Storing Coffee Cake

This cake will stay nice and moist, as long as it is stored correctly.

Make sure that the cake is completely cooled before storing.

Store the cake in an airtight container. I have this cake keeper (aff link) and it works well. If you don’t have a big enough storage container you can cut the cake into individual slices, although they won’t stay fresh as long. Another alternative is to wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap or foil.

The cake should be good for up to 3 days at room temperature, or you can store it in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

You can also freeze the cake. If freezing, do not add the icing and then add that just before serving.

More Sweet Breakfast Recipes

Monkey Bread Recipe
Zucchini Bread Recipe
French Toast Sticks
Overnight French Toast Casserole
Cinnamon Muffins
Stuffed French Toast
Dutch Baby

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