Cinnamon Streusal Coffee Cake

This, my friends is the be all and end all of coffee cake recipes. Seriously- if you are a fan of cinnamon-y, crumbly,  moist (sorry for the use of that word) and addicting coffee cake- look no further. I can tell you with all sorts of certainty that this is the best. (Wow- that sounds like a sales pitch.)

What makes it so great you may ask? Well the original recipe is from King Arthur’s Flour- and their stuff is always good. This one though, needed a few minor adjustments to make it perfect. The cake contains rich greek yogurt which which results in the perfect texture. The filling is loaded with cinnamon, and the crumbly top is sugary-cinnamony bliss. In short- this cake is my few favorite thing to enjoy with coffee.

The reason I wanted to make this coffee cake in the first place is that a friend had recently mentioned how good the cinnamon coffee cake is at Starbucks of all places. I knew that a homemade version would obviously be better so I went on a search of the perfect recipe. Just to be fair- I sampled a piece of the Starbucks version last week to do a little compare and contrast. Obviously homemade is always better, but I had to check just to make sure. Luckily my pretty little piece of cake won in all the major categories. (And I’m not biased at all I swear!) :)

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PS- Thank you all so much for entering my blogaversary giveaway and for the wonderful and kind comments. I really can’t tell you how much it means to me. :)

Cinnamon Streusal Coffee Cake

Ingredients

  • Streusel topping:
  • 2/3 cups granulated sugar
  • pinch of salt, if you use unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 4 tablespoons butter, melted
  • Filling:
  • 1 cup brown sugar, light or dark
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder, for color not for taste- you can leave it out if you want.
  • Cake:
  • 3/4 cup butter softened
  • 1 teaspoon salt, 1 ¼ teaspoons if you use unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 3 large eggs
  • 3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt., regular yogurt would also be ok.
  • 1 1/4 cups milk, anything from skim to whole
  • 3 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan, or two 9" round cake pans.
  2. Make the topping by whisking together the sugar, salt, flour, and cinnamon. Add the melted butter, stirring till well combined. Set the topping aside.
  3. Make the filling by mixing together the brown sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa powder. Set it aside.
  4. To make the cake: In a large bowl, beat together the butter, salt, sugars, baking powder, and vanilla until well combined and smooth.
  5. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  6. In a separate bowl, whisk together the yogurt and milk till well combined. You don't need to whisk out all the lumps.
  7. Add the flour to the butter mixture alternately with the milk/yogurt mixture, beating gently to combine.
  8. Pour/spread half the batter (about 3 cups) into the prepared pan(s), spreading all the way to the edges. If you're using two 9" round pans, spread 1 1/3 cups batter in each pan.
  9. Sprinkle the filling evenly atop the batter.
  10. Gently spread the remaining batter atop the filling. Use a table knife to gently swirl the filling into the batter, as though you were making a marble cake. Don't combine filling and batter thoroughly; just swirl the filling through the batter.
  11. Sprinkle the topping over the batter in the pan.
  12. Bake the cake until it's a dark golden brown around the edges; medium-golden with no light patches showing on top, and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 55 to 60 minutes for the 9" x 13" pan, 50 to 55 minutes for the 9" round pans. When pressed gently in the middle, the cake should spring back.
  13. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool for 20 minutes before cutting and serving. Serve cake right from the pan.

Notes

If you wanna make this ahead of time for a brunch or something just cover it tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Bake as directed, but you may need to add 5 mins extra or so since the batter will be cold!

Nutrition Information:
Serving Size: 1 grams
Amount Per Serving: Unsaturated Fat: 0g

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

Recipe adapted from: King Arthur’s Flour

113 Comments

  1. Coffee cake has such a place in my heart. It’s true comfort sugar to me!

  2. I love Starbucks’ coffee cake also!!! This def. looks like it will be an even better version that I can make myself (which is always preferable to buying anyway)-yay! Thanks!

  3. As far as I am concerned the more cinnamon the better, so I am quite delighted that this cake has a layer inside as well as on top-yum! This on is not just for breakfast either-an afternoon snack or after dinner treat. Thanks for posting this!

  4. Oh wow, this looks absolutely amazing. It makes me crazy when someone says “oh I just looove the whatever at whatever chain restaurant”. I always have to prove them wrong too. Way to go!

  5. That line of cinnamon looks SO amazing! I wish I had a slice of this right now. I’m yet to make a coffee cake but I’m going to now & I’m definitely using this recipe. Yum!

  6. I’ve been on a search for the best coffee cake. I’ve truly made quite a few, so I can’t wait to try your recipe!

  7. Yum :) I love coffee cake but find it so hard to find a good coffee cake and even harder to make :) This sounds delicious ~ Thanks for sharing!

  8. Wow! It does look like the perfect coffee cake! I love the cinnamony filling & that streusel topping… Yum! Thanks for sharing :)

  9. I’ve have baked this soooo many times and I absolutely love this recipe. In fact baked it just yesterday for a friend, will be posting next week! Yours look gorgeous! What I particularly love about this recipe is the cocoa filling. :)

  10. Thanks so much for sharing. After I go on my 17 day diet…I will have to make this to celebrate my weight loss. Love the fact that it doesn’t have nuts…Both my kids are allergic. The cake is the perfect texture…I want to snatch it off the screen

  11. Made this last night and it is simply delightful! Thank you so much for my new favorite coffee cake recipe! :)

  12. I have been eyeballing a recipe in one of my classic cookbooks for a cinnamon streusel coffee cake probably since I got the book years ago, and I realized after reading your most, I’m not sure why I haven’t made it yet! Maybe there was something weird about the book’s recipe. When I get home, I am going to take a look and compare, then get baking! Thanks for the inspiration!

  13. This was wonderful! I only made some adjustment because it was what I had on hand and was recipe “approved” ;)

    I used plain yogurt instead of Greek. Plain (light) soy milk instead of milk. I mixed up some agave/honey within the sugars of the fillings/toppings/cake.

    Dang good stuff!

  14. Yes !! I made this recipe and it is very, very good !! the texture is wonderful!!!
    My family loves it!

  15. Whoa there. I’ll take a slice… or 5. Great post! Definitely deserving of top 9. Anything with a streusal topping is A-OK in my book!

  16. Well, I believe that every cake with cinnamon is a good cake. :) I like this one because it looks like it’s came out of grandma’s kitchen.

  17. Made this last Sunday for my husbamd’s tennis quadrangle using whole meal flour for the streusel toppings. It was a big hit! Thanks for sharing.

  18. I just made this this afternoon, and ate a huge piece just a few minutes ago. This is by far the most delicious coffee cake I have ever made/eaten and I’ve been doing that for over 45 years. I didn’t have any Greek yogurt so I used sour cream in its place. Just wonderful!

  19. My four year old and I made this tonight. Absolutely the very best I’ve ever had. My other used to make a version with sour cream, but this version with Greek yogurt is even better. The tiny hint of chocolate flavor in the filling adds a nice subtle flavor too. Wonderful!

  20. I just made my first Coffee cake the other day – and followed up with this recipe today. My only complaint is the sheer number of dishes I had to wash after making this work of deliciousness, which was well worth it. The cake is very moist, presentation is great and it’s fun to make with kids.

  21. Just put mine in the oven, keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out as yummy as yours looks. :)

  22. Delish! Made this tonight and it was a great hit! Did not vary your recipe except to simplify dirty dishes. Use a gallon ziploc bag to mix crumb topping and another for brown sugar filling. Use a glass 2 cup measuring cup for the milk and greek yogurt. Pour in your 1 1/4 cup milk and then add yogurt or sour cream to the 2 cup mark. Whisk in that cup before adding to batter. Simple and fabulous!

  23. Just made this last night,used buttermilk instead of milk yummy. Better than starbucks will save the 3 bucks for latte. Margaret

  24. Wow! A friend of mine has a love of cinnamon, so I went on a search for a homemade cinnamon cake recipe. After a few websites of ”meh” seeming recipes, lo and behold I disocvered yours! I’m incredibly antsy to try it (just as soon as I pick up more brown sugar) and I’m sure the results will turn out beautifully :) A quick question, I can get King Arthur flour, but would cake flour also work? Just a thought :) Thanks for posting such a wonderful recipe!

  25. I made this last night and it turned out great. Very moist, tastes delicious… I’m beyond pleased! Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipe with us. All the best, Leila1949

  26. thanks I am going to have to try this, I have had the cinnamon cake at Starbucks so this will be fun to test

  27. My family loved it! Thank you for sharing the recipe. I made it the night before and baked it in the morning. Perfect! This will be a new favorite added to Christmas morning traditions.

  28. I’m so glad you liked this recipe as much as I did! I agree this would be a wonderful Christmas morning treat!

  29. this is great! i would also like to add that the store-brand at Publix Grocery has a fat-free-yogurt in the cinnamon bun flavor and it adds an extra cinnamon-y flavor.

  30. Audra, thank you so so so much for posting this recipe! I’ve been looking for a good cinnamon coffee cake recipe for quite a while… and this is the best ever! I just finished batch number 1, and my family is begging me to bake another tonight. I love your blog– very inspiring! Thanks so much!

  31. Coffee cake in oven s I’m typing. I’m in Mexico right now and will be until end April. Wanted to try a coffee cake, never have. Will post pics and comment when i done .

  32. Hola there from Puerto Vallarta Mexico. So I made the coffee cake. Now being in Mexico and altitudes and humidity coming into play, I found the cake a bit stodgy. Also a notch too sweet and I am a sweet tooth. My cinnamon was either past its sell by date or a milder version.
    I followed the recipe to the letter. It taste great, looks amazing and I will most definitely try it again. Will buy fresher cinnamon. Thanking you for a great recipe

  33. I have a cake in the oven as we speak! These 55min will be longest of my life! It smells amazing!

  34. Has anyone reduced the sugar content? I am looking for a coffee cake recipe and am afraid that this might be too overly sweet for everyone in the office. Typically when a recipe calls for an overabundance of sugar I will cut the sugar ratio is half or 3/4 per 1 cup etc. This sound so delish. . .

  35. I only had Vanilla yogurt so I swapped that in for the Greek yogurt and it was delicious!

  36. Hi there I am so thrilled I found your web site, I really found you by mistake, while
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  37. I made this yesterday for Mother’s Day and it was great! I cut the sugar in the cake part since the filling and topping were so sweet and I’m glad I did – it was still plenty sweet but not overly so. I also only had Vanilla Greek yogurt so I used that and even with the same amt of vanilla extract it wasn’t overpowering. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

  38. Just wanted to let you know I found this recipe as I was browsing through stuble upon. I knew I had to try it right away. It came out amazing! My friends loved it!

    So, all the way from Israel, thank you for this amazing recipe!

  39. waaaaay too much flour… it wouldn’t fit into my kitchen aid!! I had to divide the batter in half and combine half of it at a time! It looked nothing like the picture it was thicker and looked like bread dough. if I could re do this cake I would only do 2 cups of flour opposed to 3 3/4 cups… DO NOT ADD 3 3/4 CUPS OF FLOUR !!!!!

    1. Hmm- I’ve made this recipe so many times as have others- I wonder why the proportions didn’t work out well for you. It’s hard to know exactly what went wrong as I wasn’t there- but the flour as is has always been perfect for me. Sorry!

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  41. Hi… I just made this cake.But it didn’t turn out as expected. The center of the cake was too dense,kinda undercooked & the top was hard.It didn’t spring back when pressed. I did exactly like u had told,& baked it for 55min(350F in 9″×13″).Have no idea what went wrong.Will u be able to tell me.loved the recipe ,but wanna know why it didn’t work out for me.Also it didn’t rise as high as Urs.

  42. Thank you for the wonderful recipe! I just made this cake to share with coworkers and I can’t wait for them to try it.

    For anyone wondering about this recipe: as a former Starbucks employee I can truly say that this cake completely reminds me of the Classic Coffee Cake I would sneak pieces of in the morning– except even better. It is everything I wished the Starbucks version could be, but always seemed to lack. This cake is super moist, cinnamon-y, and covered with the perfect amount of crumbly topping. Something about the taste of buttery cinnamon is just so comforting to me.

    My only suggestion is to watch the bake time carefully – I baked mine in a 9×13 pan at 350F for 45 minutes, and it was done. Some of the edges were even a little “chewy” so I’m afraid that if I’d left it in much longer, it would have been too done.

    Once again, thank you Audra for the delicious and easy-to-follow recipe

  43. Audra, I am entering coffee cake into my local independent fair next weekend. They have a food scientist as the judge every year – last year’s judge HAD to have been related to Donald Trump or Gordon Ramsay- SERIOUSLY! I am an amazing baker but I have not won in either of the years I’ve brought items to the fair. (county fair last year I rec’d 3 blue ribbons on all three items I brought) There is quite a bit of money at stake at this fair – some get $200+ for their wnners at auction. I have been experimenting with coffee cake recipes for weeks. I literally could close my eyes and make a delicious coffee cake, no problems. Today I sent my poor husband to work with 2 cakes and surveys for each that I made so I could get real feedback, good or bad, which I think makes me insane. Anyway, I can look at this recipe and tell –it was EXACTLY what I was missing. Exactly. I am going to take a break in a few hours from work (work at home) and make it. THANK YOU for your inspiring site. I feel so lucky to have found you. I love your personality and the beautiful recipes you’ve shared with the world. Amy

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  45. An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who had been conducting a little
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  47. I think I was drooling while I looked at these pictures. I am definitely going to make this, soon.

  48. Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you
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  49. I would love to try this cake but I am allergic to cinnamon, would it be useless without it? If not, I’ll try it and let you know if I have missed out on any taste

  50. This cake looks absolutely wonderful but it is very dense and a bit bland. I’m pretty disappointed. I would try to mess with the proportions a bit.

    1. Unfortunately I am with you. I was going to enter this one in the fair but it was just decent. I was after “mind blowing”. I used an old recipe my dad dug out of his 1970s recipe box. That recipe won the class- it was so much better than this one and I actually tried making this one 3 times — trying to replicate what everyone else raved about. To each her own :-) If we all shared the same opinions and likes the world would be a boring place.

  51. This looks absolutely fantastic!! I will try this recipe RIGHT NOW! Except I don’t have any yogurt!! Is yogurt really necessary? Can I swap it for any other ingredients?

  52. Oh my gosh thank you so much for this recipe. I tried it last night and it turned out perfectly! I made a few adjustments; I used self raising flour because AP flour is not available in South Africa (the struggle of my baking life) and used coffee instead of cocoa and used half of the sugar in the cake since I don’t really like sweet things. Perfect! Thank you!

  53. I’d been searching for a cinnamon streusal cake that rivaled Starbuck’s and this one doesn’t. It’s even better. The only sub I made was sour cream for Greek yogurt. I plan on making this my go-to breakfast cake. Thanks for a great recipe.

  54. This was delicious, I love anything cinnamon. I made another to take to work, and as though the praises didn’t say enough, it was gone in 20 minutes. Definitely a keeper.

  55. How would you go about cutting this recipe in half? Delicious, but the full pan is too much for a household of two people.

    1. Because there are 3 eggs used it’s tricky to cut in half. I could suggest making 2 smaller pans and freezing one! This cake freezes well :)

  56. Have you got UK measurements? Also I use self raising do I still need to add baking powder and salt?
    And for oven, is 175 for 60mins in 2 tins ok? Mine rose and then fell.

  57. I have made this a few times, and it is a moist, tasty cake to pair with a hot cup of coffee.

    1. Yes you could do that. I’d put a little batter, filling, batter and then the topping on each one and bake for about 20 minutes. (I’d keep and eye on them and test with a toothpick for doneness)

      1. The muffins came out great. The recipe as written made 24.
        2Tbsp batter
        1 heaping tsp filling (there was leftover filling)
        2 more tbsp batter
        Little stir with a skewer
        Divide the streusel evenly.
        I used paper cups in a muffin pan.
        350° for 20 minutes until they were 210° inside.
        Great recipe.

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