Coffee Cake Muffins
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Coffee cake muffins will impress any houseguest! My perfected version has rich and moist vanilla-flavored crumb and a hefty crown of spiced, buttery streusel. Great with a cup of coffee! Recipe includes a how-to video!
Coffee Cake in Muffin Form
Coffee cake muffins have everything there is to love about coffee cake (do you see that hefty pile of crumbly, spiced streusel?), but they bake up in half the time. Essentially the handheld version of my sour cream coffee cake, these are absolutely perfect for serving to houseguests or as an afternoon pick-me-up (with or without a cup of coffee).
Why This Recipe WORKS
- Adjusted to perfection: I’ve tweaked and adjusted this recipe several times over the years, and this most recent iteration is my absolute favorite! I’ve added more brown sugar and cinnamon for depth of flavor AND more fat to help the muffins maintain their moisture longer. I also reduced the streusel amount just a bit after some complaints of too much streusel (as if there’s such a thing!).
- The easiest streusel (and plenty of it!). While many streusel recipes start with cold butter, mine begins with melted butter. It’s much easier and there’s no pastry cutter needed.
- Two tricks for fluffy texture and tall rise: rest the batter before baking and use two oven temperatures. I do this with quite a few of my muffin recipes now, and the results speak for themselves. If you want bakery-style muffins, this is the recipe for you!
Ingredients
Before we get started with the recipe, I want to highlight a few of the key ingredients that really make these coffee cake muffins shine ✨
- Cornstarch. A small amount of cornstarch replaces part of the flour to help lower the overall protein content. Thhis helps make the muffins (and other baked goods) soft and tender. This is a technique I use in many of my recipes, from cakes to my best chocolate chip cookie recipe.
- Oil & butter. I’ve recently adjusted this recipe and increased the amounts of both fats to up the moisture level in the muffins. This helps them stay tender and moist longer (but it won’t make them greasy or heavy!). A balance of both oil and butter (rather than just one or the other) gives us the perfect balance of moisture in the crumb (from the oil) and rich flavor (from the butter).
- Sour cream. Just like in my blueberry muffin recipe, I now prefer to use sour cream rather than buttermilk; it adds an moisture and depth of depth of flavor (without making the muffins taste like sour cream). Plain, full-fat Greek yogurt would also work, but sour cream has the edge in terms of flavor.
- Vanilla. We’re using plenty of vanilla here for classic cinnamon coffee cake flavor. If you’d like to make your glaze a vanilla glaze, you can add ⅛ teaspoon of vanilla extract. Just be careful not to add too much, or you could make it too sweet.
- Cinnamon. I’ve recently increased the amount of cinnamon in this recipe to make the muffins taste even more like coffee cake.
Remember, 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!
SAM’S TIP: Room temperature ingredients will make the smoothest batter, so try to bring your eggs and sour cream out of the fridge ahead of time if you can.
How to Make Coffee Cake Muffins
- Step 1: Prep & rest the batter. Stir together the dry ingredients and sugars in a large bowl, then whisk together the wet ingredients in a large measuring cup or separate bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, then gently fold everything together until combined. The batter will be thick! Cover and let the batter rest while you preheat your oven and prep the streusel.
- Step 2: Make the streusel. Melt the butter, then set it aside to cool a bit while you whisk together your remaining ingredients. Once it’s no longer hot, use a fork to toss the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs (like in the photo above). Don’t overwork it or you’ll end up with a paste rather than a crumble.
- Step 3: Portion the batter. When your batter has rested and your oven is preheated, you’re ready to go! Note, the batter will be VERY thick at this point; I use an ice cream scoop for clean and even scooping, but two spoons will work too.
- Step 4: Add the streusel. Grab a handful of streusel and sprinkle/press it over each muffin. It will seem like a lot; try to make sure you pile it on the actual muffins and not on the edges of your pan.
- Step 5: Bake. Bake for 8 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature (don’t open the door!) and bake for another 12-14 minutes or until the muffins pass the toothpick test. Let them cool in the pan for a few minutes before carefully removing to a cooling rack.
- Step 6: Add the glaze (optional). Whisk together the glaze, then drizzle overtop; I recommend letting your muffins cool for a little bit before doing this, otherwise it will melt off.
SAM’S TIP: Let the glaze solidify before you dig in; it weirdly tastes too sweet if enjoyed while it’s still wet.
Frequently Asked Questions
I often get a lot of questions about the coffee when I share coffee cake recipes (like my coffee cake cookies!). Coffee cake is typically just a treat that’s served as a nice complement to your coffee, not one that’s made with coffee. Coffee cake and coffee-cake-inspired baked goods never actually taste like coffee.
This is intentional! A thicker batter creates a thicker, taller, fluffier muffin and we lean into this even more by resting the batter. After resting, you’ll notice it’s even thicker (I also do this with my buttermilk pancake recipe and it makes them SO thick and fluffy)!
More Recipes for Streusel Lovers
If you love streusel-topped muffins, try my pumpkin muffins, apple muffins, or banana muffins next!
Enjoy!
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Coffee Cake Muffins
Equipment
- Muffin liners
Ingredients
For the muffins
- 1 ¾ cups (220 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar, firmly packed
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon table salt
- ⅓ cup (75 g) unsalted butter, melted
- ⅓ cup (80 ml) neutral cooking oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240 g) sour cream
For the streusel topping
- 5 Tablespoons (70 g) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup (66 g) light brown sugar, firmly packed
- ⅓ cup (66 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
Glaze (optional)
- 1 cup (125 g) powdered sugar
- 2-3 Tablespoons whole milk, as needed
Instructions
Prepare the muffin batter
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.1 ¾ cups (220 g) all-purpose flour, ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar, ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar, 2 Tablespoons cornstarch, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ¾ teaspoon table salt
- In a separate medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together melted butter and oil until smooth. Whisk in egg and vanilla extract followed by sour cream. Whisk until smooth and well combined.⅓ cup (75 g) unsalted butter, ⅓ cup (80 ml) neutral cooking oil, 1 large egg, 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract, 1 cup (240 g) sour cream
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and use a spatula to gently fold together until just combined, no flour streaks remain. Set batter aside while you prepare the streusel topping.
- Preheat the oven. Preheat your oven to 425F (220C) and line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners, set aside. For best results, the coffee cake muffin batter should be allowed to rest in the bowl for at least 15-30 minutes. Prepare your streusel and let the oven preheat during this time.
Prepare the streusel
- Cut butter in pieces and melt. Set aside to cool slightly.5 Tablespoons (70 g) unsalted butter
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, cinnamon, and salt.1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour, ⅓ cup (66 g) light brown sugar, ⅓ cup (66 g) granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon table salt
- Feel the bottom of the bowl your butter is in, it should not feel warm to the touch. Drizzle this over the dry ingredients and use a fork to claw the ingredients together until you have a crumbly streusel (do not stir or you’ll turn it into a paste, just toss/claw with a fork so you have a mixture of large and small clumps).
Assemble and bake
- Once batter has rested for at least 15-30 minutes, evenly divide the batter into prepared muffin tin. Divide the streusel evenly over the muffin batter.
- Transfer to center rack of 425F (220C) preheated oven and bake for 8 minutes. Once the 8 minutes has passed, do not open the oven door but turn the oven temperature down to 350F (175C) and continue to bake an additional 12-14 minutes until tops are beginning to turn a light golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- Allow muffins to cool in the tin for 7-10 minutes before carefully removing to a cooling rack to cool completely (if left in the tin for too long the bottoms could get greasy).
- Glaze: If desired, whisk together powdered sugar and milk until mixture is smooth and ribbons off the whisk. Drizzle glaze evenly over muffins (you can do this while the muffins are still warm). Allow to set before serving.1 cup (125 g) powdered sugar, 2-3 Tablespoons whole milk
Notes
Storing
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. The muffins can also be frozen. Cool completely, wrap individually in plastic, and place in an airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months.Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Leave a comment below!
This recipe was originally published in April of 2018. I’ve since (in 2026) updated it to improve the flavor and texture. If you’re looking for it, you can find the original recipe here.
Yum! New recipe for tomorrow! I know it’ll be a winner by looking at the ingredient list! And I have all of them on hand! Makes it a winner right there!
Question though regarding weight. I use King Arthur flour and use their measurements when a recipe doesn’t offer any. Is there a reason why measurements aren’t the same across the board? For instance another blogger lists a stick of butter as 115 grams, KAF has it at 113 grams. I would understand flours being different, however I don’t understand everything else. I asked on their FB page regarding this and got a pretty snotty answer…..🤷♀️ I thought it was a good question! I’m hoping you do too!
I am so excited for you to try this recipe, Terry, and I am so glad that you already have all the ingredients on hand! That is a WIN WIN for sure! I can not speak for any other blogger but my gram measurements are the EXACT measurements that I used to create the recipe. I hope that helps. 🙂
I guess the flour of KAF is lighter? That’s what I always thought, so I always use their measurements for flour, afraid not doing so would create the same effect as overmeasuring, or as if I’m dipping my measuring cup into the bag of flour (which I’ve never done!) instead of scooping into the cup and leveling off. Which I don’t do anymore anyway since I weigh everything! Ha I guess my question is, if you didn’t get your measurements from KAF, where did you get them? I wonder where KAF got theirs? Hmmm! Questions questions questions….lol
I know how frustrating this can be as everyone seems to have their own way of measuring flour. I found this article on the topic that I think you will find helpful. I hope that it answers all your flour questions. 😉
The link is supposed to be the actual word “article”, I believe, however all it does is highlight it and give me the meaning. Sorry! Flour was 1 example of differences, butter was another I gave above. I didn’t know if there was a site you went to specifically to convert measurements, cups vs grams vs ml that vary from KAF. This is my question. I guess I’m not being very clear. Sugar is another. KAF says 1 cup is 98 grams, whereas most bloggers (that I read) say 1 cup is 100 grams. When I started to memorize the different weights, it became confusing when I noticed differences. That’s when I wondered why. Why isn’t there a standard for brown sugar, granulated sugar, water, milk, buttermilk, AP flour, butter, etc. The only standard I’ve found to date is a chocolate baking bar at 4 ounces…lol Everything is off by a few grams or ml. You know what they say about baking! It’s a science and your measurements need to be exact…lol I’m talkative and inquisitive….🙂
P.S. I was called away today, so I didn’t get a chance to bake these. Tomorrow morning is clear!
I’m sorry about that, not sure why it isn’t linking properly. Yes I can understand the variation on flour (I talk about it quite a bit in my post on how to measure flour properly), but butter does not make sense to me. All I could assume is that some people round slightly up or slightly down, because to my knowledge a stick or 8 Tablespoons/1/2 cup of butter is always 113 grams. Sugar I also have my own standard for, measuring with volume is just a bit tricky but I agree you would think there would be a standard across the board. I imagine some people might pack their brown sugar more firmly than others 🤷🏼♀️ One of the reasons I now prefer baking with weights, no guesswork, it’s always exact! I really hope you love the muffins!
Ah! Now are you packing in the brown sugar and then weighing it? Or spooning it into a bowl, weighing it this way? Lol I don’t pack any longer, and actually I’ve never weighed it after to see if I’m even close! I should do that! I’m running behind, I need to get in gear so I can make some coffee cake muffins! Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions! 💜 OH! Rounding up a stick/1/2 cup of butter to 115 grams always has me opening up another stick to take from it. My sticks weigh in at exactly 113 grams! Goofy!
Hi, Terry! I usually just pack it in and level it off. I hope that helps. 🙂
Wait. You don’t just spoon into a bowl and weigh? You pack into a measuring cup, then weigh it? Or you don’t weigh it? I’m about to start making these. We only had 1 bun left, the world is falling…lol
What I am saying is that either method will work. I provide the grams measurements so everyone knows the exact weight that I used. 🙂
Of course it dawned on me that’s what you meant as I was spooning the brown sugar into the bowl 🙂 My oven, although not even 2 years old, is quite finicky. Most times I bake at least 2-3 minutes less than the least time given. I set the timer for 17 minutes. First 1 I stuck with the toothpick seemed to come out clean. Being only at 17 minutes, I stuck another. Mind you I always leave the dang door open, Heaven forbid I actually take the pan out. You’d think I was new at this! Ha The 2nd one was gooey, and since the door was open…5 more? The tops are a little past where they should be. Darn it anyway. I knew I should have gone with the stove I really wanted, but that’s a whole ‘nother story…lol There’s 3 of us, and it made 12, so the real test will come tomorrow for breakfast. Of course I licked the bowl and the batter was delicious! A pinch of the streusel topping was delicious also. Why wouldn’t they be delicious cooked? I’m making myself hungry typing this….lol Thank you for another wonderful recipe! I know we’re going to love it!
Thanks so much, Terry! I hope that you all love your muffins for breakfast! 🙂
These were a-maze-ing! My husband is hooked on Muffins from all his favorite coffee shop. I needed to make him something that he would hopefully really like. And, it worked – Thank you soo much! I wanted to make them larger so they would be like the others. So I only got 6. I think I’ll make them smaller next time. Thanks again. Will make ALOT!
I am so glad that you enjoyed them, Janie, and I hope that your husband did too! Thank you for trying my recipe and for commenting. 🙂
Can I substitute the buttermilk for someone else since I don’t have any on hand?
Hi, Ilene! I have a recipe for a buttermilk substitute that you could try. If you don’t have the ingredients for this, whole milk will do just fine as a substitute.
I didn’t make the cake part yet! I did use the streusel topping on my banana bread muffins! It was a total hit with my 4 and 2 years olds!!
Thank you for providing amazing homemade recipes. We are a BIG fan. 🙂
Thank you so much, Sheila! I am glad that you have enjoyed the topping and I can’t wait to hear how your coffee cake turns out. Enjoy! 🙂
These look delicious and I cannot wait to try them. Would I be able to make mini muffins with this recipe?
I can’t wait for you to try the coffee cake muffin recipe either, Anna! I haven’t made them into mini muffins myself, but they should be fine. I recommend just keeping an eye on the bake time, as it will be different than what the recipe states. Keep me posted on how they turn out. 🙂
These coffee cake muffins are the best! They were so easy to make. The streusel topping was so delicious! The whole family loved them! We will definitely be having these again, and again.
Thank you so much, Pam! I am so glad that everyone enjoyed the coffee cake muffins. I hope that you try more of my recipes soon. Enjoy! 🙂
OMG! These were soooo good! I’m definitely making them again. Thank you for sharing your recipes.
Thank you, Dianne! I am glad that you enjoyed the coffee cake muffins. 🙂
These were delicious, but I am doing something wrong. My batter was very lumpy, tiny little lumps thoughout. I gently folded in the wet stuff a little at a time until all the dry stuff was incorporated. It looked like I should have been more aggressive, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I fluffed the dry stuff with a wire whisk – maybe I should have used an actual sifter? I used exactly the right ingredients. I like a high crown, so I filled the cups higher, about 3/4 full. Bad idea?
The muffins were very yummy, but kinda hard. I got the same result last week with blueberry muffins. The recipe was from a cookbook, not one of yours – so I know the problem is my technique, not the recipes. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
Hmm, I’m wondering if maybe one of your dry ingredients was exposed to moisture (maybe the flour?) and that caused the lumps? That would be my best guess, I never use a sifter and I haven’t experienced this so I don’t think that’s your problem. Filling the cups higher should not be a problem. As for the cupcakes being a little hard, I’m wondering if maybe your oven is running hotter than it’s leading on and maybe they just need a minute or two less in the oven.
My oven definitely runs hot, which is consistently a vexing problem. The toothpick was completely dry when I tested them and was probably dry sooner. Because the muffins are brown anyway, it’s hard to tell how much they overbaked. That sure sounds like a reason for the hardness to me. As for the lumps, it’s a new bag of flour, but it still could have gotten exposed to moisture at some point. I’ll make something very familiar, maybe Tollhouse or similar, as an experiment. Thanks so much, Sam.
Inexpensive oven thermometers are an easy way to set your oven to the correct temperature. I’d invest in one and go from there. How’s your brown sugar? Is it nice and loose or hard? Hard brown sugar can definitely cause lumpy batter. Good luck!
I just finished making these muffins. My husband wanted blueberries added so i figured what heck i’ll try. They came out wonderful!!! No extra cooking time or anything! We each had two and i had ti hold him back from having more!
I have made many of your recipes and there isn’t one that we haven’t loved!
Thank you!!
Thank you so much for the feedback, Carrie! I am so glad you enjoyed the muffins! 🙂
These were EXCELLENT. Thank you for another great recipe!
While pretty, I wouldnt recommend making this muffin, dont waste your time, money or ingredients, as this muffin is very bland in taste, and you have to choke it down with alot of fluid as it is very hard toswallow. I followed thedirections EXACTLY as instructed and did not alter or add to it in anyway. . I am giving 2 stars, one for good visual appeal and the struessel topping saved the muffin from being a complete waste. This was my first visit tothis website and fiirst time making your muffins. I wont be a return visitor.
Hmm, between the butter, cinnamon, sugar, vanilla and buttermilk they should have had plenty of flavor. I’m wondering if perhaps too much flour was added? Did you weigh the ingredients or measure them out with cups? If you used cups, did you scoop the flour or lightly spoon and level it?
Was the muffin dry? Could it have possibly been over-mixed?
Is it possible that your oven temperature runs hotter than it reads and they might have been over-baked?
I’m disappointed to hear they didn’t turn out for you, but I use this base for a lot of my muffins with great success so I’m happy to try and troubleshoot what might have gone wrong!
My 3 and 6 year old just helped make these. Turned out perfect! Loved that we didn’t have to use a mixer. I think they are delicious.
So glad to hear that everyone enjoyed them!!
Samantha, the muffin ( cake) was 🌟 fantastic, but the topping wasn’t as sweet/ suggary as I like.
Main problem I had was thevyopping just melted into a rock-hard-carmelized crust on the top…
I am guessing my oven was too high?? I could try 350degrees, but then the muffin will be undercooked…
Im going to try your Apple Crumb Cake next, I think it might turn out better
Thanks 🌺 for your recipes & website! ❤️it!
I can’t believe how good this recipe is. My family absolutely loves it. Thanks so much!
I’m so glad you and your family enjoyed it!
Yum! Can’t wait to try these. Your chocolate chip muffins have become a regular in our house. I’ve also made your banana muffins and your blueberry muffins. Your muffin recipes are my favorite.
More cupcake recipe pls