Pumpkin coffee cake with crunchy cinnamon streusel, cozy spices, and sweet icing makes for a great fall breakfast or dessert. This cake is moist, tender, and best of all is easy to make.
Why You’ll Love This Pumpkin Coffee Cake
- The cake is super super moist and tender with a crunchy streusel topping. It’s made with a lot of canned pumpkin and sour cream to give it that dense, yet soft texture associated with coffee cake.
- Full of fall spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
- It’s great to serve in the fall for breakfast, brunch, or even dessert.
- It’s easy to make! The ingredient list may look long, but the same ingredients are used in the streusel and the batter.
Ingredients Needed
There are two main parts to this cake, which are the batter and the streusel topping. The two use similar ingredients, but just in different ratios.
Ingredients for The Cake
- All-purpose flour: For the best results, measure out your flour with a digital food scale. You can also substitute out half of the flour for whole wheat flour to make the cake a little healthier and heartier.
- Pumpkin Puree: I like Libby’s brand since it’s on the thicker side. Make sure you’re using canned pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling.
- Oil: choose a neutral oil such as canola or grapeseed.
- Eggs, at room temperature: to quickly bring the eggs to temperature, soak them in a bowl of very warm water for 10 minutes.
- Brown sugar and granulated sugar
- Sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
- Vanilla extract
- Spices & Leveners: Baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves.
- Optional: add a splash of bourbon to the batter
Ingredients for Cinnamon Streusel
- Melted, unsalted butter
- All-purpose flour
- Dark brown sugar
- Ground cinnamon
How to Make Pumpkin Coffee Cake
Step 1: Start by preparing the streusel topping so that once the batter is ready, you can easily put everything together and into the oven. To make the streusel, simply mix all of the ingredients together with a fork. until a crumbly mixture forms.
Step 2: Make the batter
Whisk sugar and wet ingredients together until smooth, then mix with all of the dry ingredients. The most important thing to remember here is to not over-mix the batter when you’re combining the wet and dry ingredients. This will result in tough and gummy cake, which is truly the worst kind lol. Mix in the flour until it is just combined and no more than that.
Step 3: Bake
Pour the batter into a greased and lined 8×8 inch baking pan. Then sprinkle the streusel on top and use your fingers to gently press it in so that it sticks to the batter. Bake for 40-50 minutes, and then let it cool completely.
Step 4: Drizzle with icing and then serve!
How to Store Leftover Cake
I treat coffee cake similarly to how I treat muffins when it comes to leftovers, in that the cake will give off moisture and is therefore at risk of getting soggy. The best way to store leftovers is in an airtight bag or container, and then add a paper towel or piece of bread on top to absorb the moisture.
You can leave the cake out at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
How will I know the cake is done?
Start checking in on your cake at around 40 minutes, though it may take 50 minutes or more to bake depending on your oven. My oven runs a little cool, so unless I crank up the temperature, baked goods tend to err on the longer side.
The pumpkin coffee cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean and free of wet batter. A few crumbs and moist pieces are okay, we just don’t want anything that looks raw.
Can I make this cake in a different sized pan?
Yes you can but will need to adjust the baking time. If you’re using a 9×9 inch pan, then you can bake it for the same amount of time. However, for a round pan (either 8 or 9 inches), add a few minutes. If you only have a 9×13 inch pan available, then make sure to double the recipe. Use the tips above aka the toothpick test to monitor the cake!
That’s all for today’s post my friends! If you’re interested in making this recipe but don’t want to do it right away, feel free to hover (or tap on mobile) over any image in this post to pin it to save it for later. I’ve also got some other pumpkin breakfast goodies like these brown butter pumpkin muffins and really moist pumpkin bread so go wild.
I would also love to hear your thoughts if you do make this recipe so go on and drop me a review or a comment–any feedback is welcome. 🙂
Pumpkin Coffee Cake with Crumb Topping
Pumpkin coffee cake with crunchy cinnamon streusel, cozy spices, and sweet icing makes for a great fall breakfast or dessert.
Ingredients
Streusel Topping
- 6 tbsp (85g) melted butter
- 1 cup (120g) all-purpose flour
- ⅔ cup brown sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pumpkin Cake Batter
- 1½ cups (180g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¾ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¾ tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ⅓ cup canola oil (or any neutral flavored oil)
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 tbsp sour cream or Greek yogurt
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract
Icing
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp milk
- splash of vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and line an 8x8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper.
- Use a fork to mix all of the ingredients for the streusel together until evenly distributed. Store in the fridge while you prepare the batter.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices together until well mixed.
- In a separate, larger bowl, whisk the oil, sugars, eggs, and vanilla together for 1-2 minutes until smooth and creamy. Add the pumpkin puree and sour cream and mix again until smooth.
- Add in all of the flour mixture to the bowl of wet ingredients. Gently whisk everything together until the flour is just combined. Do not over-mix.
- Pour the batter into the baking pan. Use a fork to break up the streusel/crumb topping and sprinkle it in an even layer over the batter. Then use your fingers to gently press the streusel in so that it sticks to the batter.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. A few crumbs are okay, but no wet batter.
- Allow the coffee cake cool for 10 minutes in the pan before lifting it out and letting it cool completely.
- To make the icing, whisk the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla together until smooth. Add more or less milk depending on your desired consistency. Drizzle over cooled coffee cake.
Notes
Ingredients
- Make sure you are using pumpkin puree from a can and not pumpkin pie filling. I prefer Libby's pumpkin since it is thicker and less watery than other brands.
- Make sure to measure your flour correctly. I'd recommend using a scale if possible.
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