Name: The Best Coffee Cake
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 70 min
Yield: 9 servings
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 1/2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp baking soda; 3/4 tsp kosher salt; 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened; 1 cup granulated sugar; 2 large eggs; 2 tsp vanilla extract; 1 cup full-fat sour cream; 1 cup light brown sugar, packed (for streusel); 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (for streusel); 2 tbsp ground cinnamon; 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted (for streusel); 3/4 cup powdered sugar (for glaze); 1-2 tbsp milk

The Best Coffee Cake

Prep

20m

Cook

50m

Total

70m

Bigly says

Listen. We need to talk about coffee cake. The BEST coffee cake. The greatest coffee cake in the history of coffee cake, and there has been a LOT of coffee cake — the Austrians had coffee cake, the Germans had coffee cake, my grandmother had coffee cake, and she was a tough woman, she did not hand out compliments, but she would have signed an affidavit for this one. People weep at this cake. Big strong men, tough men, men who have never wept at a baked good, they weep at this cake. It's been documented.

And I have to tell you — and this is important — the coffee cake situation in this country has become a TOTAL DISASTER. You go to the grocery store, you buy one of those little plastic-wrapped coffee cakes from the bakery aisle, you open it up, and what do you find? DRY. Dry coffee cake. Sad, crumbly, dusty cake that tastes like a wet napkin somebody forgot in a drawer. It's an embarrassment to coffee. It's an embarrassment to cake. And don't even get me STARTED on the streusel — most so-called coffee cakes have what I call 'streusel anxiety,' a sad little dusting of brown sugar on top that wouldn't survive a light breeze. Pathetic. A disgrace to baking.

Not this one. This coffee cake has a streusel layer so thick, so buttery, so CINNAMON-FORWARD, that the streusel is honestly the main event and the cake is the supporting cast — but the cake is also tremendous, the cake is moist, the cake has SOUR CREAM in it, and the sour cream is the whole secret, the big secret, the one most cookbook authors are afraid to admit because their sour-cream coffee cake recipes have been calling for HALF the right amount for thirty years. Embarrassing. They've been getting away with it. Not on my watch. Not in this kitchen.

Ingredients

2 cupsall-purpose flour
1 1/2 tspbaking powder
1/2 tspbaking soda
3/4 tspkosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick)unsalted butter, softened
1 cupgranulated sugar
2large eggs
2 tspvanilla extract
1 cupfull-fat sour cream(full-fat, not low-fat, never low-fat)
1 cuplight brown sugar, packed (for streusel)
1/2 cupall-purpose flour (for streusel)
2 tbspground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick)unsalted butter, melted (for streusel)
3/4 cuppowdered sugar (for glaze)
1-2 tbspmilk

Steps

1
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9-inch square baking pan and line with parchment, leaving overhang on two sides.
2
Make the streusel first: whisk brown sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Pour in melted butter and stir with a fork until clumpy and damp like wet sand. Set aside.
3
In a separate bowl, whisk the 2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4
In a large bowl, beat softened butter and granulated sugar with a mixer on medium for 3 minutes until pale and fluffy.
5
Add eggs one at a time, beating after each. Beat in vanilla.
6
On low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and sour cream in three additions, starting and ending with flour. Mix just until combined — do not overmix.
7
Spread half the batter evenly in the prepared pan. Sprinkle half the streusel over the top in an even layer.
8
Dollop the remaining batter over the streusel and gently spread to cover (it doesn't need to be perfect). Top with the remaining streusel, pressing lightly so it adheres.
9
Bake 45-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion comes out with moist crumbs and the streusel is deeply golden.
10
Cool in the pan on a rack for at least 30 minutes. Whisk powdered sugar with milk until drizzleable and drizzle over the warm cake. Lift out using the parchment overhang, slice, and serve.

One more thing

That's coffee cake. That is what coffee cake is supposed to be. You bake it Sunday morning, the house smells like cinnamon, the neighbors start showing up uninvited — and they will, neighbors can smell tremendous baking from three houses away, food chemists have run the numbers, it's a real phenomenon — and you cut a big square, you pour a big cup of coffee, you sit down, you don't look at your phone, and you eat it. That's the whole deal. That's the breakfast. Tremendous.