My cinnamon coffee cake recipe has a velvety soft, melt-in-your mouth crumb, thanks to an unexpected ingredient. It’s an easy coffee cake recipe with a ribbon of cinnamon sugar in the middle and a buttery, no-fuss streusel topping. Just 30 minutes to prep and makes enough to feed a crowd (if you’re willing to share!). Recipe includes a how-to video tutorial!

I’ve been making this cinnamon coffee cake recipe for nearly a decade now and it remains one of my go-to staples. It has a pillowy-soft crumb, a depth of flavor that keeps you going back for more (without being too sweet) a crumbly, buttery blanket of streusel, and a crowning drizzle of vanilla glaze.

4 Things to Know About This Recipe:

1. Uses an unexpected ingredient. I swap some of the butter with a brick of full-fat cream cheese. Thanks to the makeup of cream cheese (fat, protein, and slight acidity) the batter does a better job holding on to moisture and bakes up softer and a tad more dense (in a very good way). The end result is a plush, velvety crumb that stays soft.
2. Buttermilk without baking soda (on purpose). While you’ll often see the two ingredients paired together for extra lift, for this specific cinnamon coffee cake I wanted the flavor and thickness of buttermilk without the airiness often added by baking soda. By omitting it, we have a slightly more dense, moist crumb that melts in your mouth but doesn’t fall apart (a technique you’ll also find used in my chocolate chip muffins).
3. Bakes in a large pan (13×9), so it’s perfect for serving to a crowd (or freezing some for later).
4. No pastry cutter needed. The streusel is fuss-free thanks to melted butter. No extra tools required, you only need a fork!

This cinnamon coffee cake deserves a place alongside other indulgent breakfast staples like scones, French toast casserole, or my easy French toast recipe.

Ingredients

Let’s talk about a few of the key ingredients before we jump into the recipe, including one se.

• Cream cheese. I firmly believe this key ingredient is what makes my recipe better than any other out there. The crumb on this cake is so soft, so moist, so melt-in-your-mouth–and the flavor is divine. And in case you’re worried that it makes the cake actually taste like cream cheese, it doesn’t! Stick with a brick of cream cheese for this recipe, as the tub-style cream cheese contains added water and stabilizers that are best left out of this recipe. And if you perhaps live in a country where this (brick-style) cream cheese isn’t available, I recommend you try my sour cream coffee cake, instead.
• Sugar. While granulated sugar is a common cinnamon coffee cake go-to, using a blend introduces added moisture and flavor (thanks to the molasses in the brown sugar) without making things too sweet. I love using brown sugar in classic recipes where just granulated is typically used (like my chocolate cake recipe!) because of this.
• Cornstarch. We’ll add this to encourage a soft, tender, melt-in-your-mouth crumb. Cornstarch is another secret ingredient that I use in many of my recipes, from my cinnamon rolls to my chocolate chip cookie recipe.
• Buttermilk. Regular whole milk would “work” here, but buttermilk adds flavor and moisture to the end-result (which is what makes my buttermilk pancakes so special). If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can use my buttermilk substitute instead, but this particular cake is best with real, full-fat buttermilk.

SAM’S TIP: This batter will be thicker than what you’re used to, and that’s intentional. Because of this, when you layer your cinnamon sugar swirl in the center, the top layer can be a bit tricky to spread. You can try to smooth it over the surface like I suggest in the recipe, or you can just use a knife and swirl it into the cinnamon and sugar.

This is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!

How to Make Cinnamon Coffee Cake

Make the Batter & Cinnamon Ripple

1. Cream together the cream cheese and butter, then add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy.
2. Add the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
4. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the wet ingredients.
5. Pour half the batter into your greased and floured pan, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar layer over the batter.
6. Add the remaining batter on top and use a knife to smooth (if it gives you a hard time, don’t stress it and just use a knife to swirl the batter and cinnamon together!).

Make the Streusel & Bake

7. Melt your butter, then pour it over the remaining streusel ingredients and toss/claw the ingredients together to combine. You want the mixture to be nice and clumpy, don’t overwork it or it’ll be pasty and difficult to sprinkle!
8. Sprinkle streusel over the prepared cake and bake for 40-50 minutes.

SAM’S TIP: While overmixing isn’t as much of a concern with this cinnamon coffee cake recipe, overbaking is definitely possible. If your cake turns out dense or dry, it was probably baked for a few minutes too long. Keep a close eye on your cake to make sure this doesn’t happen to you!

Frequently Asked Questions

More Coffee Cake Varieties to Try:

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Cinnamon Roll Cake

Coffee Cake Muffins

Pumpkin Coffee Cake

Serve yourself a slice (with or without a cup of coffee on the side!) and let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Let’s bake together! Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified of all the newest recipes, and find my free recipe tutorials on YouTube 💜

I originally published my cinnamon coffee cake recipe on April 10th, 2017. The post has been updated to include more details and information and a video. Recipe remains the same, it was perfect as-is!