The Perfect Fall Bake
Every now and then I re-visit an old recipe to the blog to make sure it’s still up to my baking standards. I’ve learned a lot in the 7 years that I’ve been developing recipes professionally, so occasionally I just take a peek back at something I haven’t baked in a while and see if I can improve upon it. This pumpkin coffee cake was my most recent re-test, published 5 years ago, and much to my relief, I found that my efforts were completely in vain. Not trying to toot my own horn here but this pumpkin coffee cake is more than a 5-star recipe. It’s 10 stars! I’d developed it to be a festive Fall spin on my classic coffee cake, and that it is. Irresistible, perfectly spiced with an incredible texture, and it’s devoured within several hours of coming out of the oven every. time.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
It is the epitome of Fall baking! Cozy spices wrapped up in pumpkin and blanketed with a brown sugar streusel and vanilla glaze.The flavor and texture is unparalleled. Moist without being heavy, soft, and perfectly balanced with Fall spices.It’s easy! You can certainly use a mixer, but one is not needed!It keeps well. Make it a day or two in advance of your next potluck or get-together and marvel at the still-outrageously moist crumb once served
No changes were needed to the recipe, but I did decide to give the photos a facelift (minus the one above, preserved for posterity 😉) and added weight measurements to the original recipe (I initially only used cups, but if you’ve been here a while you know how important using a kitchen scale is to me!). I hope you’ll give this one a try!
Ingredient Overview 🥚🧂
The ingredients are quite similar to what I use for my pumpkin muffins, but you’ll find a few small edits. The muffin recipe was designed to have a lighter, well, muffin-like texture, and for a good pumpkin coffee cake (or any coffee cake) you need a denser crumb (but it must never be dry and should practically melt in your mouth!).
Pumpkin. Use 100% pumpkin puree and avoid cans that are labeled “pumpkin pie filling”. Annoyingly, the two are often sold side-by-side and the packaging is very similar.Spices. I start with pumpkin pie spice (don’t forget you can always make your own pumpkin spice, if you don’t have any on hand) and add a bit extra ground cinnamon. Sour cream. I went back and forth with this ingredient before discovering that a mere two tablespoons packs a punch and makes this pumpkin coffee cake outrageously good. You’d think all the moisture from the pumpkin puree would be sufficient, but a big spoonful of sour cream makes the crumb moist (but not wet) and gives the cake a well-rounded flavor.Sugar. There’s surprisingly little sugar in today’s recipe (well, it seems that way to me, anyway), thanks to the natural sweetness of the pumpkin and the streusel topping.Butter. Butter is used in both the cake and the crumb topping, and in both instances I melt it first. Melting the butter makes for a more moist and butterier final crumb (and, as a bonus, removes the need for an electric mixer).
Tips for Making Pumpkin Coffee Cake
Mixing matters! When combining the wet ingredients, I do so in stages and ensure the wet ingredient are thoroughly combined (it’s OK if the mixture looks a bit piecey, but it should be uniform). An electric mixer isn’t required, but is fine here. When whisking the dry ingredients, again ensure they are well-combined. But once you combine the wet and dry ingredients, do so gently and by hand. Don’t over-mix or the end result could be a too-dense and dry pumpkin coffee cake.The pan you use matters. I tested this recipe in a metal 9×9 baking pan and found it consistently needed 30 minutes to bake, give or take a minute or two, max. If you opt to use a ceramic or glass pan, the baking time will likely be longer than is indicated. Keep an eye on the cake and use a toothpick to test for doneness (a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean or with moist crumbs!).Don’t over-bake. This is a cardinal sin of baking, and something I stress in recipes ranging from my chocolate chip cookies to my yellow cake. Over-baking your pumpkin coffee cake means it will be dry (it should never be dry!) and crumbly. It’s best when the toothpick you use for testing comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter) and not dry. The cake will continue to bake in the pan as it cools, so removing it on the cusp of under-doneness (with moist crumbs) means it will finish baking perfectly as it cools. Once the toothpick is dry, it means you may be on the cusp of over-doneness. Get that cake out of the oven on time!
I hope you love this pumpkin coffee cake as much as everyone in my household does! If you try it out, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! 💜 Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook This recipe was originally published in October of 2017 but I have updated it to include more helpful information and new photos.
