Sour cream makes this coffee cake super moist and the best part is that it starts with a cake mix. It’s so easy to make, and loaded with lots of cinnamon crumbly goodness. This breakfast cake is an instant crowd pleaser!
I love eating cake for breakfast. And I know you know I’m serious because yesterday we chatted about my lack of shame for eating all sorts of debatably inappropriate foods first thing in the morning, such as these Best Baked Apples Recipe (don’t knock it ’til you try it.)
But really, cake is on the less-weird list of breakfast foods because while admittedly I have eaten frosted chocolate birthday cake with sprinkles within 17 minutes of waking up, it’s really not that far of a stretch from the towering shortstacks that we all like to down at the local IHOP. Really? Pancakes? We didn’t even try to disguise the name on that one.
At least this coffee cake isn’t smothered in syrup, right?
Instead it’s loaded down with a cinnamon crumble topping. Oh oh oh, and that same crumble topping is rippled right throughout the center of the cake too. Raise your hand if the streusel is your favorite part?? Good. So you all know exactly what I’m talking about when I say there can never be enough streusel.
I developed this recipe as an easy-to-make totally delicious option for feeding a crowd. When family and friends are coming over, the last thing you want to do is fuss over a labor-intensive breakfast. This cake is just the thing because it starts with a cake mix and just four other ingredients. Easy peasy. And the crumble topping is a cinch to make so the prep takes only 10-15 minutes tops then it’s into the oven. Super moist and loaded with cinnamon crumble, this is an instant favorite!
What people are saying about this Cake Mix Sour Cream Coffee Cake
“Absolutely the best coffee cake I have ever made, and maybe my new go to family treat. The trick to the second layer is dropping the batter by dollops and then sprinkling a bit of the crumb topping to help spread. Well worth the trouble! Delicious. It won’t last the day. I will recommend this to all my friends.” – Susanne
“I’m just sitting down to taste a piece of this coffee cake, all i have to say is DELICIOUS!!! The batter is thick but if you take your time and use dollops of the batter it will spread!! May not be the easiest of batters but the result IS worth the extra time! I will use this recipe again and again because it’s that good. Thank You Tiffany!!” – Tammy
“Found this on Pinterest when looking for a quick coffee cake recipe. After reading the comments I decided to spread all of the batter out first (with a spatula sprayed with Pam) and then put one layer of crumb on the top. Yes, the batter is thick but you can work with it. Oh my gosh, this came out so good! Rich, moist, flavorful, and the whole house smelled great! My husband loved it and it’s my new go-to recipe, highly recommend, so yummy!” – Lisa
“I wrangled all the dough into one layer, grinned with decadent delight at the massive layer of crumble that left me for the top, and I’m about to dish it out to my slobbering family with huge glasses of cold milk. It is to die for! I’m glad I “toughed it out” for that whole 5 minutes to make it! :p Thanks Tiffany!” – Ginger
Cake Mix Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Ingredients
- 1 package yellow cake mix - (mix only, not prepared)
- 1 egg
- 1 cup sour cream - (may sub plain greek yogurt)
- ¼ cup butter - melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Crumble Topping
- 1 ¼ cups flour
- ⅔ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup butter (8 tablespoons) - chilled and cut into cubes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9×13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
- First prepare the crumble. Whisk together flour, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Cut in chilled butter until crumbly. Set aside.
- Next prepare the cake. Combine cake mix, egg, sour cream, melted butter, and vanilla and mix until combined. It’s okay if the batter still has some lumps.
- Spread half the cake batter in the bottom of the greased baking dish (see note.) Sprinkle with half of the crumble mixture. Grease a rubber spatula and gently spread the remaining batter over the crumble (this takes a little finessing but it's worth it if you just work with it.) Top with remaining crumble.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm.
This looks so good! I’m a believer of cake for breakfast!! And I love that it’s something easy that can be whipped up quickly for guests. Wishing I had some for breakfast right now, actually!
This batter was awful to deal with. So thick, I could not spread a second layer and it combined with the struesel and god knows what mess it will turn out like. I couldn’t get an even spread so one part of the cake is larger than the other and I’m an experienced baker! Do not, I repeat, do not try to split the batter and put struesel in the middle or you will be angry and miserable like I was this morning!!!!!
The batter is very thick and takes some TLC with a spatula to gently spread it but I think the little bit of elbow grease is worth the finished product in this recipe!
I sprinkled a bit of the topping over the dollops of second layer batter. That made it easy to spread with the back of a big spoon. The second layer really is a MUST. This recipe is worth finessing just a bit, trust me! I used white cake…light as a feather.
I fully agree. First layer was weird to geT down, but i managed. After putting half the crumble down, i just put large dollops of the rest of the cake mix all over. Rounded tBl amt. then sprinkled a good dusting of the crumble over those. This allowed me to uSe back of spoon to flatten out the dollops into one beautifuL even layer. The dusting keeps The batter from sticking to the spoon. Put the rest of the crumble on top and baked.
I couldn’t figure out why the batter was so thick, so I added some organic whole milk to it, just a couple tablespoons worth. This batter was thicker than any other coffee cake recipe i had baked before. I didn’t make this as two layers, I spread the entire batter and then put the topping on, which left me with too much topping. I used a spatula and spread the topping throughout the batter in a zig zag pattern. I had about 2/3 cup leftover batter so I added 3 tbsp of melted butter and dolloped that onto the top of the cake when there was 5 minutes left on the cook time. This turned out very well. My husband told me to save this recipe! 🙂
Hi there! I chose you to reply to because you’re at the top of the list of all the others who had a problem spreading this dough. With *any* thick batter I am dealing with, how I make it easy (and smooth) to spread is: I take two soup spoons (the larger in your everyday sliverware), and scoop a little bit of the batter onto one, then use the other to push it off and drop it into the pan, move about 1 1/2 – 2″ inches away and do it again. I repeat this until all that layer of batter is gone, going back and filling in more spaces if I end up getting to the other side of the pan with some left, and then use a silicone spatula to connect the blobs I dropped. Don’t drop them too far apart, as the point is to be able to successfully connect them afterward without tearing up what’s underneath in the is case. Dropping large portions of the dough in and trying to connect and spread that is sometimes impossible with thick doughs. This works wonderfully every time! I use this technique when I need to put the bottom crust into pans (say for Oatmeal Carmelita’s) as well, then use the back of one of the spoons to spread/press out the dough drops to make the bottom crust. No mess on your hands pressing out doughs again! (It *does* take a little longer, but it guarantees success, whereas dumping the dough and trying to spread it does not.) Good luck! 🙂
Thanks For the awesome tip!
I use my cookie scoop to drop the rest of the batter on the top, then gently spread those out. Once you make it with the layer I the middle, it’s so worth it! Our local firemen make this coffee cake from scratch (no cake mix!) each summer for their breakfast and each is to bring 3 coffee cakes. There is one guy who gives up, but the rest have used my trick and even have been known to run over to borrow it and bring it back while they are in the oven!
It looks delicious – but why is called coffee cake if it doesn’t have coffee in the recipe?
Hi Alizu, “coffee cake” is a type of cake this is traditionally served with coffee.
Oh no. I love love love coffee cake. And now you’ve given me a fabulous recipe that makes it even easier to make? Goodbye skinny jeans. We had a nice run. But now I must eat cake.
I made this last night, but the proportions seemed off to me. The cake part was very thick, and I could barely spread it in 2 layers across the baking dish. I think next time I may add more sour cream or a small amount of oil. Also, my topping didn’t get as crumbled as yours in the picture. The cold butter didn’t cut into the dry mixture like I would have liked it to. Tastes great – just wasn’t what I was expecting. I may try it again with a few tweaks!
I just put this in the oven and I’m not sure if I did something wrong but the batter was so thick I could barely spread it to cover the bottom of the 9 x 13 dish. I ended up using more than half the batter for that. Then once I put the first layer of topping on it was impossible to spread the top layer of batter so I just spooned it on best I could. I’m afraid I’m going to have a lumpy coffee cake. The batter is delicious so I’m sure I’ll make this again but I’ll have to change the pan size to maybe 9 x 9 and skip the middle layer of topping.
Hi Dawn, it’s definitely a thick batter, when I make this, I just try to spread the second layer of batter the best I can over the first crumble layer. Alternately though, for an even easier recipe, you can skip the first crumble layer – just spread the batter in the dish, then top with crumble, easy peasy! 🙂