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Our Pumpkin Coffee Cake is made with the biggest, fattest streusel you’ll ever see. Plus, we packed in as much pumpkin as possible, giving this cake a texture that’s a cross between pie and cake – so rich and dense, perfect for fall, and totally irresistible!
I feel like this pumpkin coffee cake recipe needs a disclaimer. Let’s just get that over with right off the bat –
Warning: What you are about to see is disturbing in the best way possible. This pumpkin coffee cake is so moist and dense, much like a pumpkin pie, that you’ll wonder how life can be so magical. Your eyes will struggle to take in the gloriousness that is the humongous gobs of streusel topping. Ordinary coffee cake will never taste as good to you after eating this one.
There. Now that all the legal disclaimers are out of the way, let’s talk about this recipe.
It is, in a word, phenomenal. In fact, it’s one of my favorite recipes that I’ve developed over the years and let’s be real…I’ve created a lot of dang recipes.
I took my very favorite cinnamon swirl pumpkin coffee cake that I make year after year and I doctored it up into this glorious piece of heaven topped with magical streusel. The streusel. I can’t stop talking about it.
I used the streusel recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks – (affiliate link) Baked Explorations. The streusel comes out in thick chunks and the recipe makes a lot.
The cake itself is not like your normal cake. It’s a cross between a pumpkin pie filling and a cake, which sounds weird but is actually quite delightful. The cake, thanks to the two full cans of pumpkin, is super moist and dense, like a custard, but not quite so heavy. It’s just really, really good.
Let’s do this!
Ingredient Notes:
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Pumpkin – Be sure to use 100% pure canned pumpkin. You won’t want the can of pumpkin pie filling that has the spices and extra liquids added to it.
Cinnamon – Did you know that pumpkin itself doesn’t have a whole lot of flavor? That familiar flavor we all know and love is from the spices added. We call for plain cinnamon in this recipe, but you could also use our homemade pumpkin pie spice for even more warm, fall flavor.
Butter – We love the rich flavor of real butter in this pumpkin coffee cake and between the streusel and the cake itself, you’ll use a full pound of it. We only live once, so let’s do it right.
Streusel – The streusel ingredients are brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, flour, and cinnamon. Easy peasy.
Glaze – We’ll whisk together powdered sugar and milk to make a simple glaze that you’ll spoon over the top of the cake.
What We Love About This Recipe:
- Streusel: I can not stress enough how good this streusel is. The pieces are huge and the layer of streusel is thick. We don’t skimp here.
- Moist & Dense: This is NOT your traditional cake! We were going for a cross between a pumpkin pie and a coffee cake and that’s what we achieved. If you’re looking for a light and airy crumb, you’ll want to find another recipe.
- Fall Favorite: This is one of those recipes that you’ll make year after year. Everyone raves about it and looks forward to enjoying it every year.
- Simple: While the ingredient list does look a bit long, the recipe comes together quite easily. There is nothing fussy about this recipe, so long as you have a bit of time to put it all together.
Tips & Tricks:
Streusel – Unlike most streusel recipes, this starts with melted butter! Makes it so easy. Because we’re using melted butter though, you’ll want to make the streusel first and then let it sit to dry a bit as you work on the cake batter.
Cake Batter – You’ll want an electric mixer for this one as we’re creaming together butter and sugar to start the cake batter. We’ll stir in the pumpkin, eggs, and flour until just combined to help keep the cake from becoming tough.
Bake – This recipe is meant to be super moist and dense, which makes the toothpick test a little tricky. A toothpick should come out mostly clean, but not fully dry. If it’s fully dry with no crumbs on it, you’ve probably overbaked your cake.
Glaze – This is totally optional, but we love a simple powdered sugar glaze. Feel free to doctor it up by adding a dash of vanilla extract or maple extract. You can’t go wrong with either.
What Readers are Saying!
“I’ve made this recipe over ten times and have it bookmarked because it is SO good. Crowd pleaser for sure. Everywhere I bring it, the people RAVE. It is moist and delicious. If you don’t like this, go get yourself checked…” – Rachel
FAQ:
Coffee cake is traditionally served with a cup of coffee, as a sweet afternoon or evening treat. We consider this pumpkin coffee cake to be dessert, thanks to the copious amounts of cinnamon streusel and the sweet vanilla glaze.
No, there is no actual coffee in most coffee cakes. These cakes are named coffee cake because they’re meant to be served with a cup of coffee.
While some coffee cakes will do fine on the counter for a few days, our pumpkin coffee cake packs in so much pumpkin that you’ll really want to store it in the fridge for maximum freshness.
More Fall Favorites!
- Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread
- Maple Glazed Donuts
- Crockpot Apple Butter
- Apple Cobbler
- Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
Pumpkin Coffee Cake with Streusel
Ingredients
For the streusel
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter melted
- 2 1/2 cups flour
For the cake
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup brown cup sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 2 large eggs
- 2 15 ounce cans pumpkin puree
For the icing
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
To make the streusel:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with non-stick spray.
- Stir together the sugars, cinnamon, salt, and melted butter in a medium mixing bowl until well combined.
- Stir in the flour. Set aside while you prepare the cake batter.
To make cake:
- Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt to a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
- Add the sugars and butter to a medium mixing bowl and beat with a mixer until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs and pumpkin until just combined.
- Add the pumpkin mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
- Spread cake batter into prepared pan.
- Take the streusel topping in your hands and press together to form large crumbs. Top the cake with the streusel. It will seem like too much, but use it all for the best streusel experience.
- Bake for 50 minutes or until a tester inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean.
- Cool completely.
To make the glaze:
- Whisk together the powdered sugar and milk to make the glaze. Drizzle over the top before serving.
Barb Chiappa says
I love this dessert as does my family. ย Iโm wondering if you have eve made them as muffins. ย If so, how long would you bake them.
Thanksย
Karly says
Hi Barb! I haven’t made these as muffins before, but I think I’d start watching them around the 15 minute mark. Not sure how long they’ll end up taking.
Suzanne says
Absolutely the best!ย
Karly says
Yay! Thanks for trying and sharing!
Nicole King says
Anything different you would suggest for high altitude? I am excited to try this!
Karly says
Hi Nicole! Unfortunately, I don’t have any experience with baking at high altitudes, so I’m not sure what changes may need to be made.
Marianne says
Delicious and I don’t even like pumpkin! It was so good I couldn’t wait for it to cool.
Steven Wm.son says
This is simply just the single best pumpkin dessert you can make and eat. Its dense, and the topping, well. I can’t say enough good things. You want dry, crumble cake-like coffee cake? This is the opposite. Its really dessert. I made seven of these last year. SEVEN. No, it’s not healthy. Sorry. No, not sorry. This is the best if you want a memorable splurge. (I used cinnamon a few times, but pumpkin pie spice is teriffic in the cake part.)
Karly says
Oh wow, so happy to read this! ๐ Glad you’re such a fan of the recipe!
C Ann Cleven says
Too dense and flavor is lacking. This is not like the coffee cakes we are used too.
Karly says
Hi there! The blog post states right at the beginning that this is not a traditional coffee cake and that it’s meant to be very moist and dense like a cross between cake and pie. Sorry you missed that.
Candace says
Hello. Can you please clarify….
For the cake….
1 cup 2 sticks butter, room temperature
Are calling for 1C butter (which is 2 sticks)
OR….
1C and 2 sticks of butter. Which is essentially 2C of butter?
Karly says
That should be 1 cup total butter which is 2 sticks…sorry for the confusion. My recipe card used to separate that out nicely and when I changed to a new one things got a little wonky on some of the recipes.
Theresa says
I just took this out of the oven. . Smells and looks amazing. Now Iโm reading this butter comment. I used 1 cup-2sticks for streusel and 1 cup- 2 sticks for batter as stated in recipe. Is that correct? I sure hope so!
Karly says
Yes, that’s correct. Hope you enjoyed the cake!
Storm Shepard says
This recipe turned out wonderful. It’s so delicious that my family hasn’t stopped eating it. I found it on facebook and all my friends want to try a piece. I told them to stop by. My son hates streusel topping, but this he loved. I’ve found a new streusel recipe too!
Karly says
Isn’t that streusel divine? Glad you loved the cake and were kind enough to share! ๐
Storm Shepard says
This is amazing! My family can’t keep their hands off it. Thanks for a wonderful new recipe.
Lexi B. says
What would you suggest if I wanted to divide this into little individual loaf pans?ย
Karly says
It should work fine, just keep an eye on the bake time. Should bake faster! ๐
Xavier Brown says
Can I substitute the pumpkin for sweet potatoes?
Karly says
Yep, I’d use canned sweet potatoes, drain, and blend. If you use fresh, you’ll obviously want to cook first. ๐
Linda Landucci says
I just made this following directions exactly & it came out not cooked through in the middle so I extended the time longer (10 minutes) I had to cover the top with foil to prevent the streusel from getting to brown. Then I read from your comments that the coffee cake would be a bit like custard. Iโm letting it cool & hoping itโs gonna be ok! The ends cooked perfectly though just middle was undercooked it seemed.
Karly says
It definitely comes out moist. Hope you enjoyed it! ๐
Polina says
This recipes is poorly written. How can you tell what’s for the cake and what’s for the streusel? Ingredients are all just listed together in one list. It’s also not explained in the step by step directions. Please make it more clear.ย
Karly says
Sorry about that! I just converted the recipes over to a new recipe card and some of the formatting was lost in translation. It’s better now. ๐
Laraine H. says
I made this for Thanksgiving 2016 and am making it again tomorrow for this year. ย OMG this is the best streusel topping (next to my mom’s) that I have ever tasted. ย For years I tried to duplicate my Mom’s but I couldn’t; ย Unfortunately I didn’t have a written copy when she passed many years ago. ย The cake was so moist and flavorful. ย Thank you so much and HAPPY THANKSGIVING.
Karly says
So glad that you enjoyed this one! I know what’s it like searching for those lost recipes and I’m glad this at least comes close a bit. ๐ Happy holidays!
Sarah V says
I made this yesterday for my momโs Birthday. The only thing I changed was the amount of spices. In addition to the 1TBSP of cinnamon in the cake part of the recipe, I added 3.5 TBSP of pumpkin pie spice. Our family likes our pumpkin baked goods seasoned on the heavy side and I knew based on experience that 1 TBSP of cinnamon for 2 cans of pumpkin would not suit our tastes. The flavor with pumpkin pie spice was very good and I probably could have added more or maybe some ginger, allspice, nutmeg ย or cloves to even further enhance the flavor. The streusel topping for this recipe is the star. Make it exactly as written and donโt skimp. It seems like it makes a lot but the amount is perfect on the cake. The cake itself isnโt very sweet especially compared to the streusel, so the 2 together work well. The texture of the cake is dense and moist, but not heavy. Personally I would have preferred the texture to be a little more like a pie. My mom would have liked it drier and more cake like, but my husband really liked it as is. I think if I had split that recipe into 2, 8×8 pans for baking it would have turned out more dry and traditionally cake like. If I had cooked it slightly less it probably would have been a little more pie like.ย
My husband and daughter liked the glaze, personally I thought it was superfluous given the sweetness of the topping. All in all itโs a solid recipe, sure to please many, and I recommend giving it a try.
Deb Phelps says
Wow, this cake is HEAVY! As in weight, not heavy in eating. ๐ I made this yesterday and took it to Bible class today. First let me say that my cat LOVES the topping (bad cat!!) Cake truly is a cross between pumpkin pie and cake! Turned out just like you said it would. My husband doesn’t like pumpkin and even he liked it. ๐ I thought the maple glaze idea was great but you really couldn’t taste it. I used maple extract to get the stronger flavor, not sure if I would do that again or not. I did add double the spices in the cake, and used Pumpkin Pie Spice (we really like our spices) – it wasn’t too strong at all. Great cake!
Karly says
So glad you enjoyed it!
Rhe says
For anyone wondering how to make this vegan, sub vegetable oil for butter and banana for egg! Still turns out perfect! Thank you for this recipe!!ย