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These coffee cake muffins are moist and fluffy, with a crumbly streusel topping! They’re perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack.
Love a good coffee cake with a tender, moist crumb and a crumbly cinnamon topping? Then you must try these coffee cake muffins! These muffins taste just like coffee cake, but they’re quicker and easier to make.
Buttermilk makes a beautifully tender crumb, and they’re topped with a sweet cinnamon streusel that gives a crunch to each bite. You won’t want to put these down! They’re ideal for breakfast or a sweet afternoon pick-me-up.
5 Star Reader Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “EXCELLENT! DELICIOUS! OMG, these are fantastic, even my husband loves them, and he does not love sugar. Great job, Sonja, on this recipe. I love the muffin delivery system: I can have my indulgence in one muffin portion instead of eating a huge piece of cake. Thank you for another winner. These are spectacular!!” -Joan T.
Ingredients You’ll Need
Coffee cake muffins are a fun, sweet treat; honestly, they’re really more like cupcakes! But call them muffins, and they work for breakfast, too. They’re ideal paired with a cup of coffee to cut the sweetness.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- All-purpose flour
- Granulated sugar and brown sugar
- Baking powder, baking soda, and salt
- Buttermilk
- Butter
- Neutral oil
- Eggs
- Vanilla
- Cinnamon
Tricks for Baking Coffee Cake Muffins
These coffee cake muffins incorporate a few tricks from one of my favorite bakers: Sarah Kieffer and her new baking cookbook, 100 Morning Treats. Sarah is an author and trained baker, and I’m lucky enough to have her as a real-life friend, too (she lives in Minnesota, where I’m originally from!).
This recipe is not in Sarah’s book, but I took a few pointers from her muffin method. Here are a few tricks to why this recipe works:
- Use real buttermilk. Buttermilk is crucial to making a light and fluffy crumb. Don’t be tempted to use a buttermilk substitute here! Milk and lemon juice work in a pinch, but they don’t make the rich, beautiful texture of real buttermilk.
- Use both butter and oil. Butter and oil work uniquely in baked goods. Butter adds richness in flavor, and oil adds moisture.
- Use tulip muffin liners. It’s not required, but using tulip muffin liners helps the streusel topping to stay on top of the muffins and not melt down the sides.
Keys to Tall Muffins
These coffee cake muffins are tall with lovely domed tops. They look like bakery-style muffins, which can be tricky to achieve at home! Here are a few keys to achieving tall muffins:
- Fill every other cup in two 12-cup muffin tins. This results in a more even bake and beautiful domed muffin tops. It’s not required, but helpful for perfect muffins.
- Fill the muffin cups up to the top. This recipe is optimized so you have plenty of batter; you’ll fill the muffin cups very full up to the top. This avoids stubby muffins!
- Baking at 375°F makes a taller muffin. Many muffin recipes are baked at 350°F, but a slightly hotter oven makes taller and fluffier muffins. This recipe also has a hefty amount of leaveners (baking powder and baking soda) for a good rise.
Storage Info
These coffee cake muffins taste best the day they’re baked. But they hold up well over time, making them ideal for making ahead. You’ll want to keep them refrigerated because the crunchy topping can become soggy at room temperature. Here’s what to know:
- Refrigerator: Store refrigerated for up to 1 week! Let them stand at room temperature for a few minutes before eating.
- Freeze: Freeze in a sealable container and store up to 3 months.
Dietary Notes
This recipe is vegetarian.
Coffee Cake Muffins
These coffee cake muffins are moist and fluffy, with a crumbly streusel topping! They’re perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
- Category: Muffin
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
For the streusel
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
For the muffins
- 2 cups [280 g] all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¾ cup buttermilk*
- 5 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
- ⅓ cup neutral oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Place muffin wrappers in every other muffin cup of two 12-cup muffin tins.** (It’s helpful to use tulip muffin liners to keep the streusel in place while baking.)
- Make the streusel topping: In a medium bowl, combine the light brown sugar, granulated sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Use a fork to mash the softened butter into the mixture until completely combined and crumbly. Refrigerate until using.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt. Make a well in the center.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the granulated sugar, buttermilk, melted butter, neutral oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients. Mix gently until just combined and there are no longer streaks of flour. (If desired, you can store the batter up to 24 hours before baking.)
- Scoop the batter into the muffin papers using a dough scoop, dividing it evenly between the 12 cups. Sprinkle the tops with the streusel (if not using tulip muffin liners, use your fingers to gently press the streusel into the batter).
- Bake until the tops are golden brown, and a toothpick in the center comes out with a few crumbs, about 20 to 23 minutes total (rotate the pans halfway through baking). Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking rack to fully cool (about 30 minutes to 1 hour). The muffins are best eaten the day they are made, but they store very well in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or frozen for up to 3 months.
Notes
*Buttermilk is the magic ingredient that makes the most consistent texture and rise! Don’t be tempted to leave it out or use a buttermilk substitute. It’s worth it (I promise).
**Baking in every other muffin cup makes for a more consistent bake. If all you have is a 12-cup muffin tin, you can use that too.
MY GIRLFRIEND JUST USED BUTTERMILK SUBSTITUTE INSTEAD OF BUTTER MILK!! IS SHE GONNA DIE?!?!?!?!? PLS HELP ASAP?!!?!! Great muffins btw.
Haha! I hope you all make it.
EXCELLENT! DELICIOUS! OMG these are fantastic, even my husband loves them and he does not love sugar. Great job Sonja on this recipe, I love the muffin delivery system: I can have my indulgence in one muffin portion instead of eating a huge piece of cake. Thank you for another winner. These are spectacular!!
So glad you all enjoyed them!
I just made these and they were pretty bland. I only made 10 because of the direction to fill the papers, but then it was very hard to put the topping on. It made a huge mess and I was only able to use about half of it. As a result the muffins are pretty bland. I think they’d probably be good if the batter went to about 3/4 of the paper cups and then the rest was filled with streusel (as they appear in your photos. That didn’t keep my dog from eating 4….!
Thank you for letting us know! The baker should divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups here; because it was divided into 10 cups this caused the issue of the streusel falling off! We’re so sorry that the instruction that “the batter should fill to the top of the muffin papers” was confusing and we will remove that! We also used tulip muffin wrappers, which have tall sides to help the streusel topping stay on the muffins. We mentioned these wrappers in the blog post as optional, but we’ll note that it’s helpful in the recipe as well. We’ll also note that if you don’t have tulip muffin wrappers, you should gently press the streusel into the tops. Thank you for this feedback!
What brand butter do you prefer for baking. I have used different ones and some seem too greasy. Can’t wait to try this recipe!
We usually use Organic Valley.
Hello! I want to make your coffeecake muffins. However, I can never find full fat buttermilk anywhere here in San Francisco. Only at the most 2% buttermilk. So how should I make these?
Thank you, Pat
2% will work!
Thank you, Sonja, for this beautiful recipe. I expect friends in the morning, and I was looking for something simple and tasty to prepare. These muffins look fantastic. Everything is explained in detail so that even beginners in cooking can easily make it.