Coffee Cake Cupcakes

There’s never a bad time for a slice of coffee cake and the same is also true for these Coffee Cake Cupcakes. With a sweet cinnamon swirl, lots of cinnamon frosting, and a crumb topping, you can’t be blamed if you eat one of these cupcakes for breakfast!

Are there any totally “random” foods you find yourself craving all the time? I have a couple and they include meatball subs and coffee cake. Very random, right? I’m not sure what it is about them, but those two foods just always sound delicious to me no matter the circumstances.

My coffee cake craving was at an all-time high a couple weeks ago and so I sat down to decide what kind I wanted to make. Then I determined that coffee cake would be so much more delicious if it involved buttercream frosting. So, I did what any person with common sense would do and I made coffee cake with frosting. But in cupcake form.

These coffee cake cupcakes are obviously a dessert as most cupcakes are. But I’m not going to pretend they aren’t absolutely delicious with a cup of coffee as a mid-morning breakfast. Just saying!

Coffee Cake Cupcakes Recipe

If you’re a fan of coffee cake, you’ll likely love these cupcakes! They do involve a few steps, but aside from the cinnamon frosting, they’re not any more work than coffee cake.

First you’ll make the cupcake batter. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake tin with 12 papers. Then, in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, cream together butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs in one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla extract.

With mixer on low speed, beat in dry ingredients in 3 additions, alternating with the milk. Mix in each addition until just incorporated.

You’ll be layering the cupcake batter with the cinnamon swirl mixture, so once the batter is made, mix together the cinnamon/sugar mixture, too. That’s literally all it is… Cinnamon and sugar!

Now, fill cupcake liners about 1/3 of the way with cupcake batter. Then evenly divide cinnamon swirl mixture across batter in each cupcake paper. You might feel like you have too much of it, but I promise you don’t.

Top each cupcake with remaining batter. Cupcake papers should be filled about 3/4 of the way.

Bake cupcakes for 17-20 minutes, until edges are golden and tester comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes before removing to racks to cool completely.

Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting Recipe

While the coffee cake cupcakes are cooling, you can make the cinnamon frosting. It’s a simple buttercream frosting, but packed with cinnamon flavor.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat butter until creamy. With mixer on low, slowly blend in the confectioner’s sugar, cup by cup until well-combined. Mix in the milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt and blend until combined.

Crumb Topping Recipe

The crumb topping isn’t totally necessary, but I like that it makes these coffee cake cupcakes a little more coffee cake-like. It’s another simple mixture of flour, sugar, and cinnamon. 

Then you’ll take 1 Tbsp of room temperature butter and using a fork or your fingers, you’ll cut the butter into dry mixture, until small clumps form.

Once the cupcakes are cooled, you can frost them (I used a Wilton 1M tip) and sprinkle some of the crumble topping over each of them.

And then pour yourself a cup of coffee (or milk if you prefer) and take a huge bite of one of these coffee cake cupcakes.

These cupcakes are fully, and I mean FULLY, packed with cinnamon flavor. As any good coffee cake should be, really. From the cake to the swirl to the frosting to the crumble, the cinnamon is large and in charge.

Is there anything better than a cinnamon swirl?? Maybe buttercream frosting? I guess it’s possible that buttercream frosting is better than a cinnamon swirl… I really can’t decide.

Luckily I don’t have to because I get to experience it all with these coffee cake cupcakes.

Did I eat one of these for breakfast on a gloomy Tuesday morning? You’ll never know. But if you know anything about me, I think you probably know the answer to that.

What odd food cravings do you get most often?

If you prefer your coffee cake in cake form, try my Funfetti Coffee Cake. Want to try it in donut form? Try my Baked Apple Coffee Cake Doughnuts. Next up, I can’t wait to try this Hazelnut Coffee Cake from Rainbow in my Kitchen!