Cinnamon Coffee Cake
The most delicious coffee cake you will ever make - in my opinion
Ingredients
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour (100g)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (106g)
- ¾ cup brown sugar (75g)
- 1 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1 cup pecan halves
- ¼ cup salted butter (58g)
- 1 ½ cup sour cream full fat is best
- 4 large eggs
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour (305g)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200g)
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¾ cup salted butter (151g)
Instructions
For the Streusel
- In a medium sized bowl whisk together ¾ cups all-purpose flour, ½ cup granulated sugar, ½ cup of dark brown sugar, and 1 ½ tablespoons cinnamon. Be sure to break up any brown sugar clumps. Remove ½ cup of this sugar/flour mixture and place in a food processor. Then back in the medium sized bowl add the last ¼ cup of brown sugar and whisk to break up any clumps. This sugar/flour mixture will be used as the cinnamon streusel filling, set the bowl aside.
- To the ½ cup of sugar flour mixture in the food processor, add the pecan halves and pulse four times (2 seconds each) to begin chopping up the pecans. Add the cold cubed butter and process another 6 times (2 seconds each) until you get what looks like a course meal. Set aside, this will be used as the cinnamon streusel topping.
For the Cake
- Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking dish then set aside.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together 1 cup of the sour cream, 4 eggs, and 3 teaspoons vanilla extract. Set the bowl aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, and ¾ teaspoon of baking soda. Add in the room temperature butter and the remaining ½ cup of sour cream. Using a mixer on the low setting, blend the ingredients. The dry ingredients will become moist, continue blending until a very thick batter comes together. The time necessary will depend on how warm your butter is. It can take up to two minutes.
- To the thick batter, add ½ of the sour cream/egg mixture and blend on low for 20 seconds, then add the rest of the sour cream/egg mixture and continue beating on low until the batter becomes homogenous. Increase the speed to medium/high and beat for one more minute. The batter will become light and fluffy.
- Spread a thin layer of cake batter along the bottom of the greased baking pan with a rubber spatula. About ¼” thick or about 2 cups of batter. Sprinkle ¾ cups of cinnamon streusel filling overtop of the batter. Then spread another 2 cups of batter over the streusel filling layer and sprinkle with another ¾ cups of cinnamon streusel filling. Spread the rest of the cake batter over the streusel filling layer and sprinkle all of the cinnamon streusel topping evenly over the top.
- Bake in the oven at 350F for 60-65 minutes or when an inserted toothpick comes out clean. This recipe is tested in a ceramic dish. If using a metal or glass dish you should check for doneness around 50-55 minutes.
- Place on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before cutting and serving. Enjoy!
Notes
- To help with spreading the cake batter on top of a layer without disturbing the bottom layer too much, dollop a little bit of batter in each corner and along the sides before putting the rest in the middle. This helps by requiring less pushing and spreading of the batter.
- Unsalted butter can be used in place of salted butter. Just be sure to add ¾ teaspoons of salt to the dry ingredients of the cake batter.
- If you are in a rush you can skip making two layers of cinnamon streusel and just use half the batter as your first layer, then add 1 cup of cinnamon streusel filling then the other half of the batter and the normal amount of cinnamon streusel topping, but the cake won’t be quite as pretty or as “cinnamony sweet”.
- Feel free to skip the pecans if you don’t like nuts or add another nut of your choice like almonds.
- You can also add chocolate chips if you want to add a chocolate flair to this cake. Just sprinkle ½ cup of semisweet chocolate chips on each of the two bottom layers before adding the cinnamon streusel.
- Different cake pans will require different baking times. I used a ceramic pan in this recipe, but if you use a glass or metal pan it will probably require less baking time and you may want to test for doneness around 50 minutes.