This rich buttermilk cake with a sweet brown sugar streusel topping is so easy to make in a 9×13 pan and it’s irresistible!
Homemade Buttermilk Coffee Cake is perfect for a special brunch on Christmas or Easter or an easy dessert any day of the year!
Easy Buttermilk Coffee Cake
Everyone in our family enjoys this adaptation from an Amish cookbook, our Buttermilk Coffee Cake. We love making this coffee cake recipe for dessert and weekend brunch. The kids may sneak a piece for a snack once in a while.
Each family member has offered a different comment about this cake that makes me laugh.
The first time I made this recipe I shared that this is the BEST Buttermilk Coffee Cake I’ve made. But my son insisted that I have made this cake before. He recalled this Honey Bun Swirl Cake made from a box mix and similar, yet different.
This coffee cake is made from scratch, but almost as easy as using a box mix. The streusel topping also lends a different flavor than icing. Buttermilk gives the cake a rich, home-baked goodness flavor that is unmatched in my opinion.
My toddler is confident she made the cake because she “mixy up” the topping and dumped a couple measuring cups of flour and sugar in the mixing bowl.
My husband said the cake reminded him of one that his grandma used to make. She used a smaller pan and the topping went much further down into the cake.
How to Make Streusel for Coffee Cake
To get a smooth cake finish with melted butter in the streusel bake the cake about 2/3 of the baking time and then add the streusel and finish baking.
Some experimenting uncovered that using melted butter in a streusel and pouring it over freshly mixed batter will allow the butter to seep down into the cake and create little canyons throughout the baking process. My husband isn’t sure how his grandma baked her coffee cake, but we wonder if she didn’t use this amount of topping with a lot of melted butter in a smaller pan to create this finish.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder regarding which finish is preferable. The taste is the same in each baking experiment. Here is a picture of pouring the streusel on the batter before baking.
How to Make Moist Coffee Cake with Streusel
- Cream butter, sugar and egg.
- Dissolve soda in buttermilk and add to creamed mixture. Mixture will show signs of curdling.
- Stir in vanilla.
- Mix dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.
- Pour into a greased 9 x 13 baking pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350.
- Mix together streusel ingredients, brown sugar, melted butter, flour, and cinnamon.
- Sprinkle streusel on cake. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Substitute for Buttermilk
If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, no need to buy an entire jug. Simply mix 1 tablespoon of a plain vinegar or lemon juice with 1 cup of regular milk.
Other Easy Cake Recipes
Printable Recipe for Buttermilk Coffee Cake
Buttermilk Coffee Cake
Ingredients
Cake Batter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 stick butter softened
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cup flour
Streusel
- 3 tablespoons butter melted
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan and preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a mixing bowl cream butter, sugar and egg.
- Dissolve soda in buttermilk and add to creamed mixture.
- Stir in vanilla.
- Mix dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.
- Pour into baking pan and bake for 20 minutes.
Streusel
- Mix together streusel ingredients, brown sugar, melted butter, flour, and cinnamon.
- Sprinkle streusel on cake about 20 minutes into baking. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Can be eaten warm or allow to rest for a couple hours while streusel sets up
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
For some reason my streusel didn’t come out crumbly. Sugar completely dissolved in melted butter and flour didn’t help at all. It was almost impossible to sprinkle it on top and it didn’t cover the whole cake like in the picture. What did I do wrong?
So sorry to hear that! This is definitely a heavy streusel, but there should be plenty to spread over the pan. I always use regular butter, all-purpose flour and light brown sugar. If that doesn’t work I might try adding 1 – 2 more tablespoons of melted butter. I hope it goes better next time because we always love this cake!