Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel Crumble

Why you’ll love this sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel
Upside down coffee cake
Important ingredients in this recipe.
Ingredients for the coffee cake
Ingredients for the brown sugar cinnamon crumb
Why is there baking powder in the streusel?
How to make sour cream coffee cake
Make sure you have time to make yeast coffee cake
Coffee cake directions
Crumble directions
Baking the coffee cake
Serving your sour cream coffee cake
Upside down coffee cake
Traditional coffee cake
Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel Crumble

This sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel crumble has a few surprises to make it the most deliciously unique coffee cake you’ve ever had! It’s upside-down and it has yeast in the recipe – you have to try it so you know how unbelievably good it is!

food, sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel crumble

sour cream coffee cake recipe

Over the last few years, my family has moved a lot of our celebrations to brunch time instead of lunch or dinner.

It’s mostly birthday parties, but there are so many of them it seems like I’m bringing my husband and kids to my sister’s for a brunch party at least once a month.

It’s worked out that having a party during with a late breakfast really works for all of us. Because my sister and her husband have ten kids (six of them under seven years old), and things like parties tend to, you know, get them excited.

Little kids are far more likely to be happy-excited earlier in the day, instead of crazy-meltdown-excited that comes with parties during nap time or closer to bedtime.

Plus, breakfast food is super delicious. And easy. It’s not hard to make most of it ahead of time, which means no one is stuck in the kitchen doing all the cooking and preparing.

The last thing our family celebrated was the finalized adoption of my youngest niece. It was such a happy day, and I wanted to bring something unique and fun that everyone in my family would appreciate.

My favorite sour cream coffee cake recipe.

Egg bake? Nope. My eggs benedict casserole is delicious, but a few of the kids don’t care for eggs.

Pumpkin cinnamon rolls? I didn’t feel like being fussy with the dough and rolling and shaping and all of it.

Crock pot cinnamon roll casserole? This were easy, but I knew someone else was bringing a slow cooker treat.

No yeast cinnamon rolls? I had just brought the same recipe to a party a few weeks before.

I finally landed on my favorite, rarely used recipe for a sour cream coffee cake made with yeast.

Why you’ll love this sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel

It’s so good because while the yeasted coffee cake itself isn’t overly sweet, it has a delicious, thick, (OMG – it’s super thick, and it’s the best part) layer of cinnamon crumb topping (it’s actually a bottom) that’s buttery and brown sugar-y and all around delicious.

Upside down coffee cake

The secret to this recipe is that it’s an upside down coffee cake! It’s prepared by sprinkling a substantial layer of crumbly streusel in the bottom of a prepared pan, then pouring the yeasted cake batter over the crumble.

Sour cream coffee cake with a cinnamon streusel crumble on the bottom!

After the coffee cake bakes and cools, you cover it with powdered sugar, cut it into squares and serve.

Unlike other coffee cake recipes, the cinnamon streusel crumble (made with butter and brown sugar and cinnamon sugar – yum) is still crumbly, but it’s baked into the cake, so every crumb of crumble stays attached to your bite.

Finally, the sour cream and yeast give so much flavor to what usually amounts to cake with crumbles on top. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! I will happily eat cake anytime, anywhere.

It’s just that this particular recipe ends up with a seriously yummy tang from sour cream and a maltiness from the yeast. The butter, vanilla and cinnamon really round out the flavors.

Tip: I like baking coffee cake and other goodies in a cake pan with nice square corners, like this one. Those sharp edges just make every slice look so nice!

Important ingredients in this recipe.

These are notes on the key ingredients you’ll need for this recipe. You’ll find exact measurements and instructions in a printable card at the bottom of this post.

This list is divided up into the coffee cake section and the streusel crumb.

sour cream coffee cake with yeast and upside down cinnamon streusel

Ingredients for the coffee cake

Yeast – Use instant yeast or rapid rise yeast. Don’t use active dry yeast.

Flour – All-purpose flour is just fine to use in this coffee cake recipe. I prefer unbleached, because, you know, why add more stuff to simple ingredients? You can use cake flour if you want, but it’s not necessary.

Butter – Use unsalted butter if you can. Salted butter won’t ruin your sour cream coffee cake, it just adds extra salt that’s not called for in this recipe.

You’ll also want to use really soft or melted butter. Just make sure the melted butter has cooled before using it. Hot butter will kill your yeast.

Sugar – Granulated, white sugar is all you need.

Milk – whole milk makes a huge difference when baking. Like Ron Swanson says, “skim milk…is water that’s lying about being milk.” Like salted butter vs. unsalted butter, skim milk won’t ruin your cake, but even 2% will make it better.

Also, use milk at room temperature. It’s helps the yeast develop faster.

Eggs – Room temperature eggs work best. If you have the time, let your eggs sit on the counter for about an hour before you start mixing up your ingredients.

If you don’t have time, I have a shortcut for room temperature eggs! fill a dish with hot tap water and carefully submerge your whole eggs in the water for about five minutes.

Sour cream – skip the light or low-fat versions, and be sure it’s at room temperature. You can microwave it for about 10 seconds to bring the temp up.

Vanilla extract – Imitation or pure. Whichever one you like best.

Salt – I’m not fancy; all of my recipes so far require nothing more than simple table salt.

Ingredients for the brown sugar cinnamon crumb

sour cream coffee cake recipe

Butter – Again, unsalted is better, but salted will do. Your butter should be melted.

Sugar – granulated sugar or white sugar is what we’re looking for.

Brown sugar – My preference is almost always for dark brown sugar, because it has a stronger flavor. But light brown sugar also works perfectly well.

Cinnamon – Use your everyday ground cinnamon from the grocery store.

Sophisticated palates claim that they can tell the difference between premium cinnamon and the stuff the rest of us use. I’m not one of those people, and I think regular cinnamon makes delicious treats.

Baking powder – Use your choice of brands.

Why is there baking powder in the streusel?

Baking powder is a leavening agent, which means it adds air and lets your baked goods puff up.

In this recipe, the crumb topping is acutally a bottom. It’s baked under the coffee cake batter, and is revealed when the cake is cut and served after baking and cooling. The crumb topping/bottom is way more compacted than in traditional coffee cake recipes.

If baking powder isn’t included, the topping would be exceptionally hard and difficult to cut. The baking powder here keeps the finished cake crumbly enough to slice through.

sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel

How to make sour cream coffee cake

I love this recipe because it’s really un-fussy for such a delicious result. There’s no mixing dry ingredients then fixing wet ingredients. It’s not made in a bundt pan (because those are the worst to clean).

Make sure you have time to make yeast coffee cake

The only drawback to this recipe is time:

10-20 minutes to mix up the sour cream cake and the crumble.
90 minutes total to rise and rest.
45 minutes to bake.

Since this yeast coffee cake requires time to rise, be sure you have enough time to make and cool the cake.

Coffee cake directions

Mix up all the ingredients in the cake. That includes:

Butter
Granulated sugar
Milk
Sour cream
Eggs
Vanilla extract
Instant yeast
All-purpose flour
Salt

Start your mixer on low, until it’s all combined, then mix on medium for about two minutes, until the cake batter mixture becomes fluffy.

Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature or in a slightly warm environment for an hour. It won’t double in size, but it will become puffy.

Crumble directions

Combine the melted butter, white sugar, brown sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Add the baking powder and two cups of flour and stir until combined.

Continue adding the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. The mixture will become very stiff, but keep at it. By the time all the flour is added, the mixture will resemble crumbly, sandy gravel.

Use a fork or two knives to break up the crumble big lumps into smaller crumbs.

Baking the coffee cake

Grease a 9×13 pan then line the bottom with parchment paper. Sprinkle the brown sugar cinnamon crumble into the prepared pan, then pour the coffee cake batter over the crumbles. Cover the cake pan with plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Heat your oven to 350 degrees and bake the sour cream coffee cake for 40-50 minutes. Use a toothpick as a cake tester, but make sure you’re only testing the cake, not the streusel. If the toothpick comes out clean, your cake is done.

Let the cake cool completely.

sour cream coffee cake recipe

Serving your sour cream coffee cake

You have two options for serving this cake. Upside down coffee cake (like mine) or right side up coffee cake.

Upside down coffee cake

All of my pictures show this recipe as an upside down cake, because I left the crumble on the bottom. Here’s how to do it.

After the cake has cooled, sprinkle powdered sugar generously over the entire thing. Cut into squares and serve.

Traditional coffee cake

I admit, it’s never even crossed my mind to do this to my upside down coffee cake until someone suggested it at the adoption celebration I brought it to. Then I was like, “Oooooh, now there’s an idea!” (I also learned that I was sharing a traditional German coffee cake recipe called streuselkuchen. The more you know!)

After the cake fully cools, cover the pan with a big platter or cutting board. Invert the pan, set the cutting board down and lift the pan off the cake.

Peel the parchment paper off the crumble layer, then dust the coffee cake generously with powdered sugar. Cut into squares and serve.

Yield: 24 pieces

Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel Crumble

Sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel crumble

This sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel crumble has a few surprises to make it the most deliciously unique coffee cake you’ve ever had! It’s upside-down with the crumble on the bottom, and it has yeast in the recipe!

Prep Time 15 minutes Cook Time 45 minutes Additional Time 1 hour 30 minutes Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients

Sour cream coffee cake

1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 packet instant yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
Cinnamon streusel crumble (below)
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Cinnamon streusel crumble ingredients

1 cup butter, melted
2/3 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Instructions

Make the sour cream coffee cake

In a medium bowl or stand mixer bowl, combine all the sour cream coffee cake ingredients: melted butter, sugar, milk, sour cream, eggs, vanilla extract, instant yeast and salt. Mix on low until combined, then mix at medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping sides, until fluffy.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it aside in a warm place for 1 hour; it will look puffed up.

Make the cinnamon streusel crumble

In a small bowl, combine the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt with a wooden spoon. Stir in 2 cups of flour and the baking powder.
Add the rest of the flour 1/2 cup at a time and keep stirring until it’s thoroughly combined. Your mixture will be stiff, but keep at it until all the flour has been added. The cinnamon mixture will resemble crumbly, sandy gravel.
Use a fork or two knives to break up the crumble into

Make the sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel crumble

Grease a 9×13 pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Sprinkle an even, thick layer of crumble into the prepared pan. It will be a thick layer.
Pour the cake batter over the streusel crumble. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then bake the sour cream coffee cake for 40-50 minutes. It’s done when a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Serve the sour cream coffee cake with cinnamon streusel crumble

Let the coffee cake cool completely. Dust generously with powdered sugar before serving.

I’ve always served this coffee cake “upside down” style, with the crumble on the bottom. See notes for how to serve it with the crumble as a topping.

Notes

You have two options for serving this cake. Upside down coffee cake (like mine) or right side up coffee cake.

Upside down coffee cake

All of my pictures show this recipe as an upside down cake, because I left the crumble on the bottom. Here’s how:

After the cake has cooled, sprinkle powdered sugar generously over the entire thing. Cut into squares and serve.

Traditional coffee cake

After the cake fully cools, cover the pan with a big platter or cutting board. Invert the pan, set the cutting board down and lift the pan off the cake.

Peel the parchment paper off the crumble layer, then dust the coffee cake generously with powdered sugar. Cut into squares and serve.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

Serving Size:

1 slice

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 322.94Total Fat: 14.93gSaturated Fat: 8.76gTrans Fat: .12gCholesterol: 52.68mgSodium: 177.15mgCarbohydrates: 43.26gFiber: .94gSugar: 18.01gProtein: 4.42g

Nutrition information isn’t always accurate. Please do your own calculations based on the measurements provided.