Fluffy coffee cake muffins topped off with a mountain of buttery, crumbly streusel!
These breakfast treats are simple to make and the mile high pile of streusel is absolutely addictive, good luck eating just one!
I should really probably just call these Coffee Cake Muffins “Streusel Muffins”, instead. Because that’s what we’re really here for, right? All that streusel.
I mean, I don’t want to sell the actual muffins short, they’re definitely incredible. They’re light, fluffy, perfectly sweetened, flavored with a hint of cinnamon, and made with a combination of butter and oil (for the best flavor and texture — a technique that I use in my banana muffins as well), but it’s the streusel that has me reaching for a second and then a third and then just maybeee picking off the muffin top of a fourth.
I might have a streusel obsession. How about you?
If you do, you’re going to love these coffee cake muffins as much as I do. Before we can get to the streusel, though, let’s briefly go over how to make the muffins bases.
If you take a look back at some of my most popular muffin recipes (for example, my chocolate chip muffins or blueberry muffins), you’ll probably notice that the base for each of these is extremely similar. After lots of muffin fails, I determined a few key winning tips that make for some of the best muffins possible.
First, we start with a combination of butter and oil. Oil makes muffins nice and soft and fluffy, while butter has a great flavor that oil is lacking, but tends to make muffins a bit too dense. By using half of each instead of committing to just one 100%, we get soft and fluffy coffee cake muffins that also have a great, buttery flavor.
You may also notice that I add cornstarch to the dry ingredients. In my experience, this also helps to make the muffins nice and soft (a technique I also use in my secret ingredient chocolate chip cookies!).
Alright, now let’s talk about how we make all that streusel.
While many streusel recipes start with cold butter, today’s begins with melted butter, which is a technique that I use with my cinnamon coffee cake. I also think it’s much easier to make streusel this way rather than by using a pastry cutter, so that’s another reason this technique is a win for me.
How Do I Make Streusel for Coffee Cake Muffins
Firsts, melt your butter. Cut it into pieces before popping it into the microwave so that it melts evenly and doesn’t explode all over your microwave. Speaking of which, I need to clean my microwave.
Maybe cover the bowl with a piece of wax paper to prevent any potential messes.
Let the butter cool for a bit while you stir together your flour, sugar, and cinnamon. While we want it to be melted, you also want to be sure the butter isn’t scorching hot before you add it to the dry ingredients. Use a fork to work 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. The best part of the streusel is those buttery, sugary clumps!
I use my hands to pile up the streusel evenly over the muffin batter, and gently press down to snuggle that streusel into the coffee cake muffin batter.
Bake everything on 375 and enjoy!
PS: when I share coffee cake recipes I often get a lot of questions about where the coffee is in the recipe. I’m not sure if coffee cake is more of an American thing, but coffee cake is typically just a treat that’s served as a nice complement to your coffee, not one that’s made with coffee. I hope that helps clear things up!
How to Make Coffee Cake Muffins
Coffee Cake Muffins
Ingredients
Muffins
- ¼ cup (57 g) melted butter
- ¼ cup (60 ml) avocado oil or vegetable oil or canola oil may substitute vegetable oil
- ¾ cup (150 g) sugar
- ¼ cup (50 g) brown sugar tightly packed
- 1 large egg + 1 egg white room temperature preferred
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup (120 ml) buttermilk room temperature preferred
- 1 ¾ cup (220 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons corn starch (cornflour in UK)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
Streusel topping:
- 1 ¼ cup (156 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar tightly packed
- ⅓ cup (66 g) sugar
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 6 Tablespoons (85 g) butter melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F (190C) and line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
- Combine your melted butter and canola oil in a large bowl. Stir well.¼ cup (57 g) melted butter, ¼ cup (60 ml) avocado oil or vegetable oil or canola oil
- Add sugar and stir to combine.¾ cup (150 g) sugar, ¼ cup (50 g) brown sugar
- Add egg, egg white, and vanilla extract. Stir very well, until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Add buttermilk and stir.1 large egg + 1 egg white, 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, ½ cup (120 ml) buttermilk
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, corn starch, cinnamon and salt.1 ¾ cup (220 g) all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons corn starch, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon salt
- Using a spatula, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet, taking care not to over-mix the batter (which will make your muffins dense and tougher).
- Evenly divide the batter into prepared muffin tin, filling each liner about ⅔ of the way full. Set aside and prepare your streusel topping.
Streusel
- Prepare your streusel by whisking together flour, sugars and cinnamon.1 ¼ cup (156 g) all-purpose flour, ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar tightly packed, ⅓ cup (66 g) sugar, ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pour the melted butter into the mixture and, using a fork, stir until crumbles form.6 Tablespoons (85 g) butter
- Using your hands, evenly divide streusel over muffin batter, piling the streusel over the batter and gently pressing the topping into the batter.
- Bake on 375F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- Allow to cool before serving.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Terry
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…..๐คทโโ๏ธ I thought it was a good question! I’m hoping you do too!
Sugar Spun Run
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. ๐
Terry
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
Sugar Spun Run
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. ๐
Terry
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….๐
P.S. I was called away today, so I didn’t get a chance to bake these. Tomorrow morning is clear!
Sam
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 ๐คท๐ผโโ๏ธ One of the reasons I now prefer baking with weights, no guesswork, it’s always exact! I really hope you love the muffins!
Terry
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! ๐ 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!
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Terry! I usually just pack it in and level it off. I hope that helps. ๐
Terry
Wait. You donโt just spoon into a bowl and weigh? You pack into a measuring cup, then weigh it? Or you donโt weigh it? Iโm about to start making these. We only had 1 bun left, the world is falling…lol
Sugar Spun Run
What I am saying is that either method will work. I provide the grams measurements so everyone knows the exact weight that I used. ๐
Terry
Of course it dawned on me that’s what you meant as I was spooning the brown sugar into the bowl ๐ 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!
Sugar Spun Run
Thanks so much, Terry! I hope that you all love your muffins for breakfast! ๐
Janie
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 Iโll make them smaller next time. Thanks again. Will make ALOT!
Sugar Spun Run
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. ๐
Ilene
Can I substitute the buttermilk for someone else since I don’t have any on hand?
Sugar Spun Run
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.
Sheila
I didnโt 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. ๐
Sugar Spun Run
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! ๐
Anna
These look delicious and I cannot wait to try them. Would I be able to make mini muffins with this recipe?
Sugar Spun Run
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. ๐
Pam
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.
Sugar Spun Run
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! ๐
Dianne
OMG! These were soooo good! I’m definitely making them again. Thank you for sharing your recipes.
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you, Dianne! I am glad that you enjoyed the coffee cake muffins. ๐
Mary
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 donโt know if thatโs 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.
Sam
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.
Mary
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, itโs hard to tell how much they overbaked. That sure sounds like a reason for the hardness to me. As for the lumps, itโs a new bag of flour, but it still could have gotten exposed to moisture at some point. Iโll make something very familiar, maybe Tollhouse or similar, as an experiment. Thanks so much, Sam.
Terry
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!
Carrie
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!!
Sam
Thank you so much for the feedback, Carrie! I am so glad you enjoyed the muffins! ๐
Elizabeth M.
These were EXCELLENT. Thank you for another great recipe!
A dissappointed meffin taster
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.
Sam
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!
Caroline
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.
Sam
So glad to hear that everyone enjoyed them!!
Sandra Ward
Samantha, the muffin ( cake) was ๐ 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 ๐บ for your recipes & website! โค๏ธit!
Baxter
I can’t believe how good this recipe is. My family absolutely loves it. Thanks so much!
Sam
I’m so glad you and your family enjoyed it!
Annette
Yum! Canโt wait to try these. Your chocolate chip muffins have become a regular in our house. Iโve also made your banana muffins and your blueberry muffins. Your muffin recipes are my favorite.
julie ann calalo
More cupcake recipe pls