Sour Cream Coffee Cake
The Best Sour Cream Coffee Cake was originally published in 2016. We have since added notes and a few updated photos.
Our best sour cream coffee cake recipe is delicious and by far, our favorite. It’s easy to make, and it always comes out perfect. We make the cake and put the second layer of crumb topping on right before we bake it. Just make it up the night before and put it in the refrigerator.
Crumb Topping for Sour Cream Coffee Cake
(Makes one portion): 1/2 stick of unsalted butter, 1/4 c. sugar, 1/2 c. unbleached flour, a pinch of sea salt. Make two portions in separate dishes, one for the middle and one for the top. NOTE: Doubling this in one batch has proven inferior to the final result. Mixing smaller portions as suggested has made an excellent filling.
The Coffee Cake Ingredients:
- Unbleached Flour: I have added to the notes to the recipe card that we live at high a altitude. The recipe could present an issue for lower altitudes such as too dry of a crumb. I would suggest reducing the flour by just a tablespoon or two.
- Baking Soda and Baking Powder: Both are needed in this recipe. The soda works with the sour cream (acid), but too much soda to get the cake to rise would affect the flavor. The baking powder gives the final fluffiness of this coffee cake, and the amounts of each have proved to be perfect.
- Sea salt – Not much is used here, but you can increase it to taste. There is also salt in the crumb topping. You could also try salted butter rather than unsalted.
- Unsalted Butter (5 TBSP.) (softened)
- Sugar – A whole cup. We have tried to reduce it and it simply wasn’t as good.
- Vegetable Oil – Using only oil made the cake too heavy. The oil and butter produce a balance of fat and retain the tenderness of the crumb.
- Large eggs – Fresh are always the best.
- Sour Cream – An excellent combination of acid and fat and adds moisture to a baked product.
- Pure Vanilla Extract – We make our vanilla extract from scratch. The taste is truly superior to imitation vanilla and the ingredients are simple.
- Blueberries – Fresh are best.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray bundt pan.
In a bowl: Whisk the first 4 ingredients and set aside.
In a mixer beat together the butter, sugar, and oil until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
Then, add sour cream, and vanilla, and beat lightly.
Add the flour mixture slowly, and beat until combined.
Add any additions to the batter such as 1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries or chopped apples, and beat or stir lightly.
Spoon half of the batter into the bundt, and top with one dish of crumb topping.
Spoon and spread on top the rest of the batter and top with the remaining dish of crumb topping.
If baking, crumble the second portion of topping over the top. If refrigerating overnight, wait until morning to add the second portion, and then bake.
Bake 55 minutes at 350 degrees, and test. Bake 5 more minutes if needed, or until a knife comes out clean. Serve warm with butter. 10-12 servings. ENJOY!
PrintThe Best Sour Cream Coffee Cake
- Total Time: 1 hours
- Yield: 8–10 Servings 1x
Description
An easy coffee cake that can be prepared the night before and baked in the morning. A sweet, crunchy topping and soft middle filling makes this one of our favorite coffee cakes.
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 c. unbleached flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4. tsp. sea salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/3 c. unsalted butter (5 TBSP.) (softened)
- 1 c. sugar
- 1/3 c. vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs
- 1 c. sour cream
- 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- fresh or frozen blueberries (optional)
- Topping:
- (Makes one portion): 1/2 stick of unsalted butter, 1/4 c. sugar, 1/2 c. unbleached flour, pinch of sea salt. Make two portions in separate dishes, one for the middle and one for the top.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 10 cup bundt pan.
- In a bowl: Whisk the first 4 ingredients and set aside.
- In a mixer beat together the softened butter, sugar, and oil until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Note: I tried to decrease the sugar and it really tasted a bit bland.
- Then, add sour cream, vanilla, beat lightly.
- Add the flour mixture slowly, and beat until combined.
- Add any additions to the batter such as 1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries or chopped apples, and beat or stir lightly. You can also add the blueberries to the middle layer after step 7.
- Spoon half of the batter into the bundt and top with one dish of crumb topping.
- If baking, crumble the second portion of topping over the top. If refrigerating overnight, wait until morning to add the second portion, and then bake.
- Bake 55 minutes and test bake 5 more minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Serve warm with butter. 10-12 servings. ENJOY!
Notes
We live at a high altitude. Adjustments may be necessary at lower altitude baking. A TBSP or 2 more of flour could help. This is just an idea, but something to keep in mind if you live lower than 7200 feet!
Thaw frozen blueberries or use fresh in this recipe.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Breakfast & Brunch
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 12
On Joyous Home, you’ll find everything from food to handiwork, homeschooling to grace-filled living. Along with my daughter, Jessica, we love publishing and blogging about homemaking. We are children of Christ, and imperfect wives and homemakers. We’re happy you’re here!
Where is the coffee?
Well, maybe we can rename it, sour cream cake ‘for coffee’ 😀 No coffee inside it, thanks for visiting!
Theresa
I just made this and am wondering if there is an ingredient missing in the crumb. You can see it in yours but mine disappeared. Did you add cinnamon or spices?
Hi Cindy, We sometimes will use cinnamon for the middle crumb portion, but my original crumb recipe doesn’t contain cinnamon. It is supposed to be more of a butter crunch, not spicey. However, I sometimes like it for the middle and it looks like we did add it on this one, OR we used brown sugar instead of white sugar now that I think it about it. I’ll make a note in the recipe that you can optionally add 3/4 tsp. cinnamon to one portion or maybe try brown sugar. Thanks so much for visiting! Blessings, Theresa