Coffee cake muffins with crumble topping are easy and delicious. They're topped with a crumbly, buttery streusel top overflowing as you pull them out of the oven. They're explosions of flavor in your mouth. And the best part is you can eat them for breakfast. With coffee.
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One of my favorite things is how food or a single recipe can take you back to a specific moment in time or remind you of a certain person in your life. These muffins are in honor of my grandmother who made the most out of this world delicious coffee cake recipe.
We're taking classic coffee cake and turning them into the most tender muffins. These are by far the best muffin recipe and maybe even my favorite recipe
She also inspired me to make brown butter blueberry coffee cake and these pumpkin streusel muffins. I'm also planning to make these cinnamon muffins because we had something so similar growing up.
Ingredient Notes
Here is everyhting you need to make coffee cake muffins:
- Cinnamon: It adds such a rich and spicy-sweet flavor to so many dishes!
- Flour: an all purpose flour is great for this recipe, but you could also swap it for a cake flour or a 1:1 gluten free flour. I tested it using gluten free flour and they turned out great!
- Light brown sugar
- Melted butter: I tested these with regular butter and vegan butter and they turned out delicious both times.
- Milk: either whole milk or a dairy free milk like almond milk! Swap this for sour cream or greek yogurt if you have that on hand for a soft muffin with a tender crumb.
- Baking powder, baking soda and salt
- Eggs: room temperature eggs are best because they mix into the batter easier.
- Vanilla extract
Almost every ingredient (besides the dairy) can be found in the baking aisle when you head to the store.
How to Make Coffee Cake Muffins
- Make the crumb topping: combine the sugars, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk in the melted butter, then add the flour and combine with a rubber spatula. Spread out mixture on a baking sheet to dry until it's crumbly and ready to use.
- Combine the dry ingredients: combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.
- Whisk in the wet ingredients: whisk together milk, melted butter, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl. You could use a hand mixer for the wet ingredients, but it's not necessary because we're using melted butter.
- Add the dry ingredients: Add the flour mixture and stir using a rubber spatula until just incorporated, being careful not to over-mix.
- Bake: Scoop the muffin batter into paper-lined muffin cups about ⅔ of the way full. Pile the top of the muffin high with the prepared streusel topping. Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes then reduce the heat to 350°F to finish baking. Cool slightly on a wire rack then run a butter knife around the edges to release the muffins from the muffin tin.
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The Secret to Getting Muffins to Rise Higher
Starting the oven at a higher temperature introduces hot air quickly to the muffins which helps them rise really well. After the initial rise, you can lower the temp to finish baking all the way through.
Expert Tips
Some of the biggest culprits to dry muffins are over-mixing the batter and baking the muffins too long.
- Be sure to mix the batter JUST until it's incorporated and not any longer.
- All oven temps vary, so pay close attention to the muffins at the end.
- Last but not least, if you have time to cover and chill the muffin batter for an hour (or overnight) you can do that. It results in a moister, tender muffin.
Frequently Asked Questions
Although coffee is in the name, there isn't actual coffee in it. Traditional American coffee cake is a pound cake layered with cinnamon and streusel. These are the muffin versions of those! They're called coffee cake muffins because they're the perfect compliment to a hot cup of coffee or a foamy latte.
This is likely from over-mixing. Once you don't see anymore streaks in the batter and all of the ingredients are done, stop mixing.
If you make this recipe, I’d love for you to give it a star rating ★ below. You can also tag me on Instagram so I can see it!
More Muffin Recipes
- Healthy morning glory muffins
- Healthy banana muffins
- Easy blueberry muffins with crumble topping
- Nutella filled banana muffins
Coffee Cake Muffins
Ingredients
Crumb Topping
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon McCormick Gourmet™ Organic Ground Saigon Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted (can sub vegan butter)
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour (can sub 1:1 gluten free flour)
Coffee Cake Muffins
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour (can sub 1:1 gluten free flour)
- ½ cup brown sugar packed
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup milk (can sub dairy free milk)
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter, melted (can sub vegan butter)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 large eggs
Icing
- ¼ cup powdered sugar
- 2-3 teaspoons milk
Recommended Equipment
- Muffin Tin
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners then spray with nonstick spray. Set aside.
- To make the crumb topping, combine the sugars, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk in melted butter then stir in the flour using a rubber spatula. Set aside while you make the muffin batter.
- To make the muffins, in a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and set aside. This makes a lot of crumble topping. If you don't want as much crumble, I recommend cutting this recipe in half.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, melted butter, vanilla and eggs. Pour mixture over the dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula until just incorporated, being careful not to over-mix.
- Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin cups until they're about ⅔ of the way full. Generously top each with the reserved crumb topping, using your fingers to gently press the crumbs into the batter to help it stay in place while baking. It will be a lot of crumb topping on each muffin.
- Bake muffins in preheated oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350°F degrees and bake another 10-12 minutes until set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- While the muffins are baking, make the glaze. Combine powdered sugar and milk in a medium bowl and whisk until smooth. If the glaze is too thin, add more confectioners' sugar as needed.
- When the muffins are done, cool for 10 minutes and drizzle the glaze on each muffin using a small spoon.
Ash says
Recipe doesn't call for vanilla in instructions, but does in the ingredient list. Added it to the wet ingredients in #4.
B Smith says
These are not very sweet and the crumble tastes too floury alone, so they need the icing. Next time, I will try adding 1/2 C sugar to the muffins and maybe 1tsp Vanilla to the icing.
martha says
Hello! can I freeze them?
Molly Thompson says
Yes you can! Store them in a freezer bag or air tight container in the fridge for up to 3 months.
Katherine says
Does not look like the picture of course, look so deformed and I bake alot. Just made them, so haven't tried them yet. Hope it tastes better than looks. Kinda disappointed.
Wendy says
Ingredients say 2 eggs . Instruction say add egg. Which is it 1 egg or 2 eggs.
Molly Thompson says
Hey Wendy! That's a typo. The instructions should say eggS. Thanks!
West Haven Vapors says
Has anyone ever vaped Driptec eJuice Vaping ejuice?
KateL says
No flavor unfortunately. Was so excited to try these and they just didn't turn out. The flavor just wasn't there.
Molly Thompson says
Hey Kate! What specifically was lacking in flavor? They're supposed to taste like coffee cake. So sweet with hints of cinnamon:) Thanks!
Lauryn says
This happened to me too, it just didn’t have flavor and a really weird aftertaste.
Hannah says
These turned out so good! I doubled the recipe and made large muffins (made about 8 large). I didn’t need to double the streusel recipe though. The streusel tastes like shortbread which was delicious. I ended up adding an extra ten minutes to the cook time because of the increased size. Fresh out of the oven with a cup of coffee is the perfect combo.
Hannah says
These turned out so good! I doubled the recipe and made large muffins (made about 8 large). I didn’t need to double the streusel recipe though. The streusel tastes like shortbread which was delicious. I ended up adding an extra ten minutes to the cook time because of the increased size. Also, I subbed gluten free flour 1:1 and I never would have known it was GF. Fresh out of the oven with a cup of coffee is the perfect combo.
Mari says
I wish more recipe developers would use weights instead of volume measurements. There’s too much room for error with baking when using volume. Like plenty other bakers, I’ll use the King Arthur weight conversion chart. Maybe you’re measuring your flour different, but the batter came out runny like pancake batter.
I had to add extra flour to mimic the density and texture from the video which was really just guesswork.
There is easily more than double the crumble than what can reasonably fit on 12 muffins.
Orion says
DONT LISTEN TO THE RATINGS.
They were so disappointing. I made these because I wanted something similar to the store bought ones that I grew up on. They lied to me. I was so disappointed. They lack sweetness despite the mountain of powdered sugar I put on the end (don’t like icing) and the texture was just… off. They have a weird aftertaste and honestly? The blandness and chewiness could appeal to someone but not me. They made me sad.
YN says
These looked delicious but lacked flavor and were not sweet, surprisingly. I would definitely add white sugar to the batter and cut the flour a lot in the crumble if I ever made them again. Trying to figure out how to give these more flavor now that they are made.
Molly Thompson says
Surprising to hear! We just made these and they had tons of flour and we find they're almost too sweet. We tried swapping in sour cream for thee milk and they were great. There's a lot of sugar in these and the topping so I wouldn't recommend adding more. You could add more cinnamon or nutmeg if you want. We've also made them with blueberries.
Ross Burnett says
Havent finished baking these yet but already cant stand the way this recipe is written. *icing* should be written as another process, not anotger bulletpoint in the ingredient list. Using weight measurements vs volume would make this so much better. Ended up with about 3 times more crumble than what can even fit in 12 muffin cups. Dont make these, find a better recipe.
Molly Thompson says
Hi Ross, thanks for the feedback. The ample amount of crumble is purposeful, they're supposed to be loaded high with it. We've tested this recipe countless times and love how much crumble is in them so that's a personal preference. We recommend patting the crumble down into the filled muffin tins to fit more. The pictures you see in this post were done this way. We're working on updating our baking recipes with weight measurements, but we're a tiny team and a small business, so appreciate your patience. Finally, we updated the bullet point which was a simple mistake. Have a good one, thanks.
Kayley says
These muffins came out great! They are the perfect amount of moistness while still making you feel like you need a drink of coffee or milk with them. Also just the right amount of sweetness!! I will say that I only used about 3/4 of the crumb topping because I couldn't fit it all on top of the muffins & I also took them out about 5 minutes earlier which I think made them more moist!
Kenzie says
It's really good