Coffee Cake Muffins Recipe - Dessert for Two

Jump to Recipe

If your favorite thing about muffins is a crumb topping, then I have the muffins of your dreams right here! My Coffee Cake Muffins are made with double the crumbs: half in the middle of the muffin and the rest piled on top. It makes 4 muffins, but you can double or triple the recipe easily.

Two crumb topped coffee cake muffins stacked on top of each other with kitchen towel alongside.

I'm going to need a slow clap starting now. When the oven timer goes off, you can begin. When I pull these out of the oven, start to pick up the pace. Then, when I undress a muffin, go ahead and burst wildly into applause. These perfect coffee cake muffins deserve it.

My friend Heather requested a small batch of coffee cake, and since she has given me tons of amazing restaurant recommendations, who am I to deny her the sweet, crumbly coffee cake of her dreams?

I debated over making a recipe for mini coffee cake in a 6" pan, but after almost 13 years of blogging, I've realized that everyone has a muffin pan, but not everyone has a mini 6 inch cake pan. If you do own a mini cake pan, welcome to the dessert for two club. I love you, and don't miss my 6 inch cake recipes post.

This recipe has double the crumb topping because I like crumbs in the middle and the top of the muffin. it makes 4 mini coffee cakes, and I know you'll love them.

I used my recipe for coconut cupcakes as a starting point for this recipe. If you've never made those, you must. They are dense, like coconut pound cake. I've turned coconut haters into coconut lovers with that cupcake! Every time that recipe calls for coconut anything, I use cream as a swap.

Ingredients for Coffee Cake Muffins

Small bowls of flour, sugar, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla on white surface.

Brown Sugar. You can use light or dark brown sugar for these coffee cake muffins; both work equally well. It is for the crumb topping.
Granulated Sugar. We need white granulated sugar twice: once for the crumb topping and once for the batter.
Ground Cinnamon.
Butter. Just one tablespoon of melted butter brings the crumb topping together into clumps.
All-Purpose Flour.
Oil. I bake with any neutral oil without flavor. This means grapeseed oil, avocado oil, or canola oil. Do not bake with olive oil (unless it's my olive oil muffins) or coconut oil, which have strong flavors that overpower the other ingredients.
Egg. One large whole egg for this recipe; yes, both the egg yolk and egg white.
Heavy Cream. This makes the batter so rich and fluffy, but you can use full-fat greek yogurt or sour cream in its place, if that's what you have.
Vanilla Extract.
Baking Soda.
Baking Powder.
Nutmeg. In my opinion, it's freshly grated nutmeg or nothing else. The pre-ground stuff in the jar pales in comparison to grating a whole nutmeg. Here is the mini microplane I use to grate it.

How to Make Coffee Cake Muffins

Small rustic bowl with melted butter, brown sugar and flour.

Bowl of crumb topping for coffee cake muffins.

First, preheat the oven to 375-degrees Fahrenheit, and place 4 cupcake liners in a muffin pan. Then, combine the brown sugar, white sugar, a pinch of salt, cinnamon, melted butter, and flour in a small bowl.

Stir with a fork until this crumb mixture comes together. It will be very wet, and it should clump together in your hands if you squeeze it. Set it aside while you make the muffins.

Oil and sugar in small bowl with kitchen towel on side.

Batter with oil, egg, heavy cream and vanilla in bowl.

In a separate small bowl, combine the oil, sugar and a pinch of salt. Beat together with an electric mixer for a few minutes until fluffy.

Next, add the whole egg, cream, and vanilla extract. Beat again to combine.

Adding dry ingredients to bowl with yellow batter.

Muffin pan with only 4 cups full of yellow batter.

Finally, evenly sprinkle the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg on top. Fold to combine. Don't overmix, but make sure no streaks of flour remain in the batter.

Scoop 1 ½ tablespoons of the batter into the muffin cups. Top with a spoonful of crumb topping, and then divide the rest of the batter between all muffin cups. We're doing this so that the center of the muffins have streusel filling.

Adding crumb topping in a muffin pan before baking.

Four domed coffee cake muffins in a pan with only 6 holes.

Sprinkle the remaining streusel on top of each muffin, and then bake for 19-23 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out with only moist crumbs clinging to it (no wet batter).

Let the freshly baked coffee cake muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes, and then gently remove them from the pan. Let cool completely and serve.

Coffee cake muffin sliced in half to show inner streusel filling.

When you slice these in half, you can see the ripple of streusel in the center of the muffin. It is so yummy to have streusel inside a muffin and on top of a muffin!

If you love crumb topping as much as me, check out my crumb donuts recipe from a few years ago.

Variations:

Heavy Cream - Heavy cream is my first choice for this recipe, because the fat in heavy cream makes muffins so tender. However, you can swap in equal amounts of full-fat greek yogurt or sour cream.
Fruit - If you want to stir in a half-cup of fresh blueberries, you can. Coat them in a small amount of flour before adding them to the batter so that they don't sink to the bottom. You might remember this trick from my small batch blueberry muffins recipe!
Serving - Yes, you may double this recipe. I have even tripled it to make one dozen coffee cake muffins with great success.

Storage

This is a small-batch recipe that only makes 4 muffins, so you won't need to store them for long. However, if you double or triple the recipe, store any leftovers in an air-tight container on the counter at room temperature. They will keep for up to 3 days if you add a slice of bread to help with moisture retention. You can also freeze them (already baked), and defrost overnight in the fridge. After a few seconds in the microwave, they will taste freshly baked!

Questions about Coffee Cake Muffins

Why is it called a coffee cake muffin?

You might be surprised to find out this recipe does not contain coffee. A coffee cake is referred to as such because bakeries sell them to accompany a cup of coffee. They are moist, soft cakes that go perfectly with any morning beverage.

What makes a coffee cake a coffee cake?

It's the streusel topping that makes something a coffee cake. Here, we're putting streusel inside the muffin and on top for the best experience ever.

Yield: 4