Coffee Cake Recipes: Easy Homemade Cinnamon Crumble

Promising a weekend breakfast on roughly three hours of sleep and pure spite is exactly what led to a frantic search through coffee cake recipes at seven on a Sunday morning. Staring blankly into the pantry, heavily debating whether a box of stale cereal could pass off as “rustic,” made actually baking something feel like the only respectable option.

This batter turned out forgiving enough to survive a completely botched mixing order without falling apart. Among the many easy coffee cake recipes out there, this one earns a permanent spot for requiring almost no effort while still tasting like a real weekend treat. Here is exactly how I do it.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Time-saver. Fifteen minutes of assembly beats a drive-thru run on any chaotic morning.
• Foolproof. Among easy coffee cake recipes, this one practically makes itself.
• Pantry friendly. No special grocery run is needed for random ingredients.
• Crowd-pleasing. A pan of this disappears faster than a second cup of coffee gets poured.

Tools You’ll Need

Nothing fancy, I promise.

• 9×13 baking dish Standard issue for a reason. Glass or metal is fine, just grease it well.
• Mixing bowls. A couple of these handle aggressive whisking without a struggle.
• Silicone spatula. This scrapes every last bit of batter out of the bowl.

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs – Lightly beaten. If you forget to take them out of the fridge early, just run them under warm water for a minute.
• 1 cup vegetable oil – Keeps the cake moist for days.
• 1 1/4 cups milk – Whatever you have in the fridge is fine, just maybe don’t use chocolate milk.
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract – Measure with your heart, but a tablespoon is a good starting point.
• 3 cups all-purpose flour – Most homemade coffee cake recipes fail because of too much flour, so try measuring flour correctly by spooning it into the cup.
• 1 cup granulated sugar – For the cake batter.
• 1 tablespoon baking powder – Check the expiration date. Dead baking powder is a tragedy.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt – Balances all the sugar so you don’t go into immediate shock.
• 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar – Packed tight. This is for the streusel layer.
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon – Do not skimp on this.
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup unsalted butter – Melted. This gets drizzled on top at the end.

How To Make Coffee Cake

Do not panic when you see how thick this batter gets; it is supposed to look exactly like that.

1. Prep the oven: Preheat the oven to 350°F and lightly grease your baking dish – do not skip the greasing unless you enjoy chiseling baked sugar off glass.
2. Mix the wet: In a large mixing bowl, mix the eggs, oil, milk, and vanilla until it looks like a cohesive liquid and not a science experiment.
3. Mix the dry: In a medium bowl, blend the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.
4. Combine and pour: Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix well, then pour half the batter into the prepared dish – if it’s thick, just kind of aggressively nudge it into the corners.
5. Make the streusel: In a medium bowl, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and mix well.
6. Layer it up: Sprinkle half of the cinnamon sugar on top of the batter, carefully spread the remaining batter over that, and top with the rest of the cinnamon sugar – dropping the top batter in small dollops makes spreading way easier.
7. The butter drizzle: Drizzle the melted butter over the top, using more or less as desired (always use more, obviously).
8. Bake: Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Make it yours

• Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Double Cinnamon Crumb. Try this version for a tender sour cream cake layered with a generous double cinnamon crumb topping.
• Chocolate Espresso Coffee Cake. Go for a richer variation with chocolate and espresso flavors for a deeper, more indulgent coffee cake.

Perfect Pairings

These homemade coffee cake recipes suit two specific pairings particularly well.

• A chaotic holiday morning needs exactly this kind of bake when everyone demands food at the same time.
• A side of bacon rounds out the sweet with a salty contrast that never disappoints.

Coffee Cake

This recipe belongs at the top of any list of coffee cake recipes, since it proves that a chaotic, sleep-deprived morning can still produce something genuinely impressive. Among homemade coffee cake recipes, this one stands out for its forgiving batter and double cinnamon layer, delivering everything the best coffee cake recipes should offer in under an hour. Whether served plain or dressed up with blueberries, this recipe belongs in the permanent rotation of easy coffee cake recipes for any weekend breakfast emergency.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Total Time 55 minutes mins

Servings: 15 servings

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Calories: 264

Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• 2 large eggs (lightly beaten)
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 11/4 cups milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 11/4 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4-⅓ cup unsalted butter (melted)

Equipment

• 9×13 baking dish
• Mixing bowls
• Silicone spatula

Method

 

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking dish and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix eggs, oil, milk, and vanilla.
3. In a medium bowl, blend flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.
4. Add the flour ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Pour half the batter into the prepared baking dish.
5. In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon and mix well.
6. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon sugar on top of the batter. Carefully spread the remaining batter over the cinnamon-sugar layer. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture on top.
7. Drizzle the melted butter over the top, using more or less as desired.
8. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, and serve warm.

Recipe Notes

Flour: I always spoon and level mine into the measuring cup, since packing it down leaves the cake dry and dense.

Vegetable oil: I use this instead of butter in the batter, since it keeps the crumb moist for days.

Brown sugar: I pack mine tightly for the streusel layer, since a loose measurement leaves the cinnamon layer too thin.

Butter: I only use this melted for the drizzle on top, since it binds the streusel so it never blows off the cake.

Blueberries: I fold these in when I want a fruitier version, adding five to ten extra minutes to the bake time.