Pumpkin Coffee Cake

I finally made my first pumpkin recipe this season! It was bound to happen because it’s a yummy ingredient to work with this time of year. I hope you guys aren’t sick of seeing pumpkin recipes yet because this one is a winner.

This five layer coffee cake is a combination of a pumpkin pie and coffee cake. This moist vanilla cake has a layer of pumpkin custard and a swirl of cinnamon oat streusel in the middle and on the top.

Pumpkin Coffee Cake Recipe
(Makes 16 servings)

Ingredients for Streusel:

1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats (aka old fashioned oats)
1 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup pecan nuts, chopped

Ingredients for Pumpkin Layer:

3 cups pumpkin puree
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon all spice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Ingredients for Cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (equivalent to 1 stick) butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 cup sour cream

Directions for the Streusel:

Melt the butter.
Mix together the meted butter, flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Do this while the butter is still hot, it will mix much more easily. Set it aside once mixed.

Directions for the Pumpkin Layer:

Mix together the pumpkin puree, egg, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, all spice, and nutmeg. Set it aside.

Directions for Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease an 8 x 8 baking dish and set it aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Set the dry ingredients aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar.
Mix in the vanilla extract and eggs.
Mix half of the dry ingredients and half of the sour cream into the wet ingredients, then repeat to complete the cake batter.
Pour half of the cake batter into the greased baking dish.
Sprinkle half of the streusel on top of the cake batter.
Pour all of the pumpkin mixture on top of the streusel layer.
Pour the remaining half of the cake batter on top of the pumpkin layer.
Sprinkle the remaining half of the streusel on top.
Bake it in the preheated oven for about 75 minutes or until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean.
Allow it to cool completely before cutting into it.

Store in the refrigerator or in the freezer.

Warning, this recipe involves a lot of dishes, a lot of time, and has a crap load of steps, but it’s SO worth it. Building this coffee cake is like making a lasagna. It’s not difficult, but it involves a lot of steps to make all the stuff for the layers and then to actually layer the ingredients into one masterpiece. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word to describe a dish, but this is truly an outstanding breakfast treat.

I’m a bit anal so I like to weigh the layers to make sure they’re as close to exactly half portions as possible. If you don’t own a scale then you can obviously just eyeball it. I hope you don’t mind all of the pictures, but I thought it would be helpful. It’s kind of like a flip book. 😉

The first layer is half of the vanilla cake batter. Try to squish it into the corners and make it a uniform thickness.

The second layer is half of the cinnamon oat streusel. It’s a traditional cinnamon streusel with some oats added for an Autumn feel. It’s actually a little like granola. A hot bowl of oatmeal is perfect breakfast this time of year so anything with oats in it reminds me of this season.

By the time you have the second layer in the pan, you may already be worrying about everything fitting properly. Well, hold on… it gets way, way worse.

Pour all of the pumpkin mixture, as the third layer. It’s very similar to the filling in a pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is my favorite pumpkin recipe of all time!

The fourth layer is the second half of the cake batter. By this time, you should be bugging out about the tiny amount of space left in the pan, but it’s going to fit. It’ll just be really close.

The fifth, and last, layer is the second half of the cinnamon oat streusel. It juuuust fits. 😉 I strongly recommend placing the coffee cake pan on a baking sheet when you put it in the oven. The cake will rise as it cooks and push its way well out of the pan in the process. A few bits of the topping will likely pop off the cake and the baking sheet will catch them. A cake that completely fills a pan leaves no room for fingers. So, as an added bonus, the baking sheet will also give you a way to move the cake around for testing or final removal from the oven without putting thumb prints in the cake or burning yourself.

Tada! Didn’t I say it was a masterpiece?!

I must have checked the oven every five minutes after it got to about 40 minutes to make sure that it didn’t spill and take over the oven. Lol. I love thick cakes so I was determined to make it work. Feel free to use a bigger baking pan if you prefer a shorter cake or less stress while filling the pan. 🙂 (Note that you will need to adjust the baking time. I haven’t made it in a bigger pan so you’ll need to watch it.)

Everyone’s oven is different so please use a trusty cake tester to determine when it’s done. The finished cake will have a dark and toasty smelling streusel topping. The center of the cake will feel a tad wobbly, but that’s okay because it will continue to cook after you take it out of the oven. (After 75 minutes in the oven and because of all the liquid in the middle, this cake has a LOT of heat stored in it.)

Be patient and let this cake cool before you cut into it. I know, it’s torture, but all of the layers really need to set. If you cut into it too early it may not be solid enough to cut. 😉

I think this coffee cake looks gorgeous, if I do say so myself! I fell in love with it by just looking at it. Then I heard the harps when I bit into it. 😉 All of the dirty dishes and waiting time was worth it.

The cake layers are moist and fluffy, perfect for a coffee cake. Then you get to that luscious layer of pumpkin goodness! Sometimes “pumpkin” flavored goodies tend to taste more like spiced goodies and you miss the pumpkin flavor. There is no missing the pumpkin flavor here! It’s packed with traditional pumpkin pie spices, but they don’t over power the pumpkin.

As if the cake and pumpkin layers aren’t magnificent enough, can we talk about those dreamy layers of streusel? It’s perfectly sweet and cinnamony, gooey in the middle layer and crunchy on top. I added a few pecans to the streusel layers for some added crunch factor.

There are so many fabulous textures going on in this thick breakfast cake. The moist cake, creamy pumpkin layer, and crunchy cinnamon oat streusel make every bite worth the calories. 🙂

The only thing missing from this picture is a cup of coffee. It’s kind of a must when you’re eating “coffee” cake, but somehow I didn’t think to make a cup for the pictures.

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