When you want a baked good for breakfast or brunch, you can’t beat a nice coffee cake. They’re easy to prepare and ready within an hour. As they bake, your kitchen smells like a bakery. If you have guests over, someone will always ask, “What smells so good?” If you need a dish to take somewhere, a coffee cake is the perfect, portable, party pastry.

The recipes here are all “quick bread” coffee cakes. That is to say, they don’t use yeast (which takes more time), but are made from scratch using flour as a base and baking powder or baking soda as their leavening agent. (A couple of the recipes call for a store bought-baking mix like Bisquick which is basically flour plus baking powder.)

In a later post, we’ll address yeast-risen coffee cakes and short-cut coffee cakes (those which use dinner rolls, biscuits in a tube or some other time-saving base). But for now, grab a coffee, sit back, relax and get ready to be hungry. I present to you…

33 Favorite Coffee Cake Recipes

1. Strawberry Jam Coffee Cake – You can use any flavor jam that you like. I’ve tried this recipe with both strawberry and raspberry jam and loved the results.

2. Mud Pie Coffee Cake – A very unique coffee cake with a center that’s so soft, moist and tender… it might remind you of bread pudding.

3. Overnight Coffee Cake – A good, solid standard coffee cake with a brown sugar and pecan crumb topping. This one is especially good with… you guessed it… coffee.

4. Blueberry Coffee Cake – The inside is fluffy and loaded to the max with blueberries. The top is surprisingly crisp. This is my personal favorite of the many kinds of blueberry coffee cakes I’ve tried.

5. Apple Coffee Cake – By volume, this coffee cake has more apples than flour which makes it extremely flavorful and moist.

6. Pineapple Coffee Cake – A very easy recipe. Each bite has just the right amount of pineapple. A simple sugar and walnut topping adds flare but keeps the focus on the tropical flavor inside.

7. Starbucks-Style Cinnamon Coffeecake – I experimented with cakes, crumbles and fillings until I came up with a recipe that’s just as good, if not better, than the notable coffee cake from the famous chain.

8. Blueberry Oatmeal Breakfast Cake – An egg-free coffee cake that includes whole wheat flour, oats, applesauce and lots of delicious blueberries.

9. Deluxe Pumpkin Coffee Cake – One of my very favorites on this list. It’s a delectably dense cross between pumpkin pie and cake. A cinnamon pecan topping adds a fun crunch.

10. Cinnamon Flop (Coffee Cake) – This easy-to-make coffee cake features soft fissures and cracks loaded with buttery brown sugar and cinnamon.

11. Butterscotch Coffee Cake – This coffee cake uses butterscotch chips and more butter than I’d like to admit to give it a sweet, indulgent flavor. This one got 20 thumbs-ups from the 10 people I had try it.

12. Blitzkuchen (German Coffee Cake) – A basic coffee cake with a delightful walnut crumble topping. FYI… Kuchen is the German word for “cake” and Blitz is German for “lightning.” Who’s in the mood for Lightning Cake?

13. Crunchy Kuchen (German Coffee Cake) – Like a blitzkuchen (above), but with a crunchy topping thanks to crushed corn flakes.

14. Raspberry Cobbler Coffee Cake – This colorful beauty has fresh red raspberries resting in a light vanilla cake. Top it off with sliced almonds and a drizzle of icing and it looks like you bought it at an expensive bakery.

15. Cherry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake – This dish is from a 1990 Philadelphia Cream Cheese recipe booklet that I found at a thrift store for $1.00. The featured ingredients are cherry pie filling, sliced almonds and, of coarse, Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

16. Cranberry Sauce Coffee Cake – Finally! A proper use for that cranberry sauce that’s always left over from the holidays. Sweet, tangy, tender and delicious!

17. Breakfast Cereal Coffee Cake – Honey Bunches of Oats cereal is part of the batter and also included in the lightly crunchy topping. You can experiment with other cereals to make this coffee cake uniquely your own.

18. Banana Date Coffee Cake – This coffee cake is loaded with flavor from bananas, dates, coconut, walnuts and orange juice. All that good stuff makes this coffee cake a bit more dense than the others on this list.

19. Peanut Butter Coffee Cake – The main flavor of this coffee cake is peanut butter, but occasional bites with chocolate chips will remind you of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

20. Sour Cream Pumpkin Coffee Cake – This is a vintage recipe from a 1987 magazine advertisement. Pure pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice pack a powerful pumpkin punch in this coffee cake.

21. Carrot Cake Coffee Cake – Have you ever wanted to have your favorite dessert for breakfast? If your favorite dessert is carrot cake, get ready to have a good time! Shredded carrots and pineapple juice are the ingredients of distinction in this recipe.

22. Upside-Down Pineapple Coffee Cake – It’s like a regular pineapple upside-down cake, but you get to eat it for breakfast! In this recipe, pineapple rings are placed in the bottom of the pan with a rich brown sugar topping. When it’s done, you invert the pan and it looks super cool.

23. Chocolate Swirl Coffee Cake – If you like real chocolate dripping through your coffee cake with a flaky coconut and nut topping, this recipe from a vintage 1971 recipe card might be just the thing to make your morning.

24. Easy Pineapple Coffee Cake – It’s easy because you can prepare the batter in minutes using crushed pineapple and a store-bought biscuit mix. Step into the coffee cake time machine and take a look at this recipe from a 1964 advertisement for Dole Pineapple.

25. Cranberry-Nut Coffee Cake – Cranberries aren’t just for Christmas. This coffee cake features cranberry sauce and lots of almonds. This is another one that requires a store-bought baking mix like Bisquick.

26. Peach-Nut Coffee Cake – This recipe has the distinction of having the most unusual coffee cake ingredient: baby food! Although when you think about it, peach baby food is just pureed fruit. Easy and convenient. This recipe comes to us all the way from 1954 from an advertisement for a defunct manufacturer of tin cans.

27. Lemon Coffee Cake – This recipe requires lemon curd or lemon pie filling. Raspberries are optional but highly recommended.

28. Oatmeal Coffeecake – This one has the goodness of oats but you don’t really notice any oat flavor. The taste is more reminiscent of German chocolate cake thanks to coconut and chocolate chips.

29. Banana Crunch Coffee Cake – A topping with a good amount of chopped almonds gives this coffee cake a fun crunch, while the cake is soft, moist and loaded with a banana bread kind of flavor.

30. Cinnamon Coffee Cake – This tasty treasure has a ribbon of chopped pecans and brown sugar running through the middle. The filling doubles as the topping for double the fun.

31. Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake – Ribbons of sweet cinnamon run through the middle of this coffee cake. This recipe has received only perfect (5 out of 5) reviews so far.

32. Strawberry Coffee Cake – This coffee cake uses fresh strawberries, but the result is very jam-like. A little coconut in the topping adds another dimension to the overall taste.

33. Vegan Coffee Cake Crumble – You won’t find any butter, milk or eggs in this recipe, but you will find delightful flavor, especially in the brown sugar and cinnamon topping.

For even more coffee cakes and hundreds of other breakfast baked goods, visit the Baked Goods Recipe Collection at MrBreakfast.com.

Save the date… April 7th is National Coffee Cake Day!

Homemade coffee cakes are the best.  Of all the breakfast baked goods, you get the biggest payoff for the least amount of work. This one is so easy that it’s called a “flop”.  That is to say, you basically flop or plop all your ingredients in a pan and bake it.

Here’s the recipe:

Cinnamon Flop (Coffee Cake)

“A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.” – Ludwig Erhard