Strawberry Coffee Cake with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze — Sweet, juicy strawberries are found in every bite, and the cream cheese glaze is the perfect tangy complement to the creamy, sweet cake.
Easiest Strawberry Coffee Cake Recipe
I used every trick in the book I know to create a soft, moist, and tender buttermilk coffee cake recipe. All those tricks paid off, and it’s the best coffee cake I’ve ever made.
It comes together in one bowl in minutes. Not only that, but I combined all the ingredients in the bowl all together, all at once, rendering it like using cake mix. Dry, wet, oil, eggs, all at once, beat it together, pour it in the pan, and bake.
No sifting together dry ingredients and setting aside, then creaming butter and sugar until fluffy, or adding eggs, one by one, before carefully folding in the dry. Not necessary. Wham-bam, slap it in the pan.
A month ago I made this Blueberry and Jam Buttermilk Coffee Cake and couldn’t get it out of my mind. That cake almost uses the dump-together method, with just a very quick whisking of the dry ingredients before adding the wet. It used to be my favorite coffee cake, until this one.
For this strawberry coffee cake, I added sour cream in addition to buttermilk, and used oil instead of butter. The trifecta of sour cream, buttermilk, and oil is guaranteed to result in good cake karma.
They add moisture and richness, and the cake retains some lightness and fluffiness, courtesy of the buttermilk.
Before baking, I sprinkled turbinado sugar over the top, which creates a slightly crunchy, chewy, and sweet crust. Underneath the golden browned top lies a moist, rich, soft, creamy, dense, yet tender interior.
While baking, the top domes and the strawberries sprinkled on the surface before baking sink down, creating potholes and craters filled with sweet, juicy berries. Best potholes ever.
The vanilla coffee cake glaze is truly the icing on the cake. It’s sweet, tangy, and the perfect creamy complement to the strawberries and cake. If you have extra frosting and don’t eat it all with a spoon, use it as a dip for fresh fruit.
I love this cake. It’s my new go-to cake batter for fruit-based coffee cakes. Sweet, soft, tender, fast, and easy.
You can make this cake faster than you can go to the grocery store and buy one. It’s the perfect lazy weekend morning cake or for brunches or showers. Or for Wednesday nights after work.
Move over, Entenmann’s. I never need you again.
What’s in the Strawberry Coffee Cake?
To make this strawberry coffee cake recipe you’ll need:
- Egg
- Granulated sugar
- All-purpose flour
- Sour cream
- Buttermilk
- Oil
- Vanilla extract
- Baking powder and baking soda
- Salt
- Strawberries
- Turbinado sugar (optional)
And for the simple coffee cake glaze, you’ll need:
- Cream cheese
- Sugar (granulated or powdered)
- Unsalted butter
- Vanilla extract
How to Make Strawberry Coffee Cake
Simply whisk together the coffee cake ingredients, then fold in the chopped strawberries. Turn the batter into a 9-inch springform pan and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
I baked it for 30 minutes at 400F, then lowered the temperature to 375F, and baked for 25 minutes. I probably should have pulled it out about 5 minutes before I did because the edges got a little dark, but I lost track of time. Whoops, it happens.
If at any time you feel your cake is becoming overly browned before the center is setting up, cover it with foil.
Let the coffee cake cool completely before drizzling with glaze.
Can I Use Frozen Strawberries?
Yes! Even though it’s strawberry season, I used frozen strawberries because my family ate the fresh ones I was going to bake with. I rarely bake with fresh fruit because it’s more expensive and usually gets eaten before I can squirrel some of it away to bake with.
If you’re using frozen fruit, thaw it only as much as necessary to slice it, before sprinkling it on top of the batter. Frozen fruit runs and bleeds less than thawed.
Can I Double This Recipe?
Yes, you can double the ingredients and bake it in a 9×13-inch pan. However, you may not need to double the glaze — it really just depends on how much glaze you like on your coffee cakes!
Tips for the Best Coffee Cake
Most any fresh or frozen fruit could be used in this recipe, including blackberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines, mangoes, pears, plums, or cherries. This batter will make any fruit taste like a million bucks.
I baked it in a 9-inch springform pan, and although you maybe could get away with a standard 9-inch cake pan, I like being able to remove the ring so I don’t have to invert the cake to get it out. Plus, springform pans have higher sides and I like the extra insurance so there’s no chance of an overflow.
A tip is to place your springform pan on a baking sheet so if there’s a leak, the baking sheet catches it rather than the bottom of your oven.
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Strawberries and Cream Coffee Cake with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup sour cream, very thick Greek yogurt may be substituted, although I have not tested it
- ¼ cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup canola or vegetable oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- 1 ¼ cups frozen or fresh strawberries, halved and loosely packed
- 2 to 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar, for sprinkling (2 tablespoons granulated sugar may be substituted)
Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze
- about 3 ounces, about 1/3 cup cream cheese, softened
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar OR about 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, granulated sugar prevents glaze from getting as ‘crunchy’ when exposed to air, but doesn’t incorporate as smoothly as confectioners’ sugar
- 2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Cake:
- Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a 9-inch springform pan with floured cooking spray, or grease and flour the pan; set aside (I fear a regular 9-inch cake pan won’t quite be deep enough; but an 8-inch or 9-inch square pan is okay).
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large mixing bowl and hand mixer), combine first 10 ingredients (through salt), and mix on medium-high speed until smooth and combined, about 2 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and mix on medium-high speed until smooth and combined, about 1 minute.
- Transfer batter to prepared pan.
- Arrange strawberry slices uniformly over the top of batter (looks like a lot but they sink down and shrivel while baking).
- Evenly sprinkle with 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar.
- Bake at 400F for 30 minutes.
- Lower the temp to 375F and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until cake is golden, set in the center (it will likely be domed), not jiggly, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs dangling, but no batter.
- Allow cake to cool in pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before removing from pan and turning out onto a rack to cool completely.
- While the cake cools, make the glaze.
For the Glaze:
- Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and beat until smooth, either with a whisk or a mixer. Play with ratios of all ingredients to suit your tastes.
- Drizzle glaze over cake in big ribbons, going up and back, over the surface (the photos show the glaze skimpier because I wanted the strawberries to be visible, but I used all the glaze after the photos were completed).
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Easy Coffee Cake Recipes:
ALL OF MY COFFEE CAKE RECIPES!
Blueberry Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping — An EASY, no-mixer cake studded with juicy blueberries and topped with big buttery streusel nuggets that are just SO GOOD!!
Cinnamon Coffee Cake — Between the cinnamon-sugar crust AND the cinnamon-sugar swirled through the center, this EASY coffee cake is IRRESISTIBLE!! Soft, fluffy, light, and of course it’s perfect with coffee!!
Coffee Crumb Cake— This coffee crumb cake recipe couldn’t be easier to make! It’s made with boxed yellow cake mix, which is used in both the batter and the crumble topping.
Glazed Cinnamon Roll Coffee Cake — A very fast and straightforward cinnamon coffee cake to make and isn’t fussy at all. It’s moist, dense, and way easier to make than actual cinnamon rolls!
Glazed Pumpkin Coffee Cake – A FAST and EASY no-mixer pumpkin coffee cake with rich pumpkin flavor and topped with big buttery crumbles!!
Vanilla Coffee Cake — The cake has enough density to give it some heft and body, but it’s still light, springy, bouncy, and fluffy.
I should never look at your posts with a empty belly, they always make me so jealous!
Love those plates too!
Whoa.. Just mix everything in the bowl with no special process or techniques? No fresh fruit? This sounds like it’s too good to be true!
Looks amazing and I cannot wait to give it a shot! Especially with different fruits once I get over this strawberry kick I’m on.
I’ve determined that for my family and for my blog readers, the less fussy a recipe is, the better! Adding eggs, 1 by 1, alternating with adding a flour mixture in small amts and beating after each addition, etc…not necessary.
I personally don’t find much difference when I do bake like that and it takes SO much longer and is more complicated and readers get frustrated…so…why bother if it’s not really going to matter! And frozen fruit is cheap and always available and works for me :)
and I LOVE that you were generous with the glaze!
I hate when people make a wonderful coffee cake and just add a dribble of glaze on.
This is just stunning Av!
Girl I HATE it when people underglaze a cake or anything. In many of my photo shoots I go skimpy with the glaze but note in the recipe that I add the remainder AFTER the shoot b/c sometimes if I over-do it, it just looks like a white mess and you can’t really see the food, just the reflective glaze; but for this cake, it was a little dark on the edges (whoops, distracted!) and so I smeared that glaze on nice and thick :)
That cake looks so dream! I love that you used strawberries :)
Absolutely drooling over this cake, pinned! :)
Thank you, Laura!
You just make the prettiest food! I bet with sour cream and buttermilk this is SO tender. And cream cheese glaze?! This is too good!
Between the oil, sour cream, buttermilk, GLAZE, juicy fruit – the moistest and best coffee cake I’ve ever made or had, period. This is the one to make!
This sounds and looks absolutely heavenly! Plus, I love the “toss it all in a bowl” philosophy :) I’m usually very meticulous when it comes to my recipes, and I think it would be a nice change to just not worry about sifting, folding and waiting for the damn thing to rise :) I’m also thinking, this would look adorable in cupcake-size!
xx Ivana
Macarons and Pearls
No need to be meticulous with this at all – works like a charm with the dump-it-all-together method!
This looks INCREDIBLE!! I have some sour cream to use up, so I have the perfect excuse ;)
My only question is that I am out of AP flour and I only have bread flour left. I am just about to move across the country, so I really don’t want to buy another bag of AP flour right now, and I would love to use up my bread flour. Do you think bread flour would work in this recipe? I know you are really knowledgeable about the merits of different flours. If you don’t recommend it, do you have any other suggestions for baking recipes on your site that use bread flour + sour cream?
Thanks so much, Averie!
Bread flour would likely be okay in this but just know it will be a little more ‘sturdy’ and not as light and delicate tasting. Also, I’d use less, maybe 3/4 cup rather than 1 cup. Or a heaping 3/4 cup but likely you don’t need 1 c since it’s more ‘absorbent’ than A.P. and adding 1 c will make the cake too dry I think.
Bread flour. ANY of my cookie recipes can be made with bread flour. And in fact, these are my go-to choc chip cookie recipe and although I’ve since gone back to making them with AP, bread flour works like a champ. https://www.averiecooks.com/2012/11/chocolate-chip-and-chunk-cookies.html
Use it in ANY of my cookie recipes
https://www.averiecooks.com/category/dessert/cookies
Sour cream
use in ANY of my banana bread recipes where I call for yogurt https://www.averiecooks.com/category/bread
Oh Averie! This cake is so beautiful. And I forgot to tell you how much I love your website design!
Ahhh, thanks, I am loving my new site too!
Haha – wham, bam, slap in the pan – love it. :) And that’s totally my style when it comes to baking! This looks amazing, Averie. And perfect timing with the abundance of ripe berries this time of year.
The less fussy, the better!
I’m always blown away when I log on first thing in the morning (okay, I guess it’s no longer ‘first thing ;) and you have so many comments! But with a cake like this, it’s understandable. I’m not a big cake baker, but strawberries, buttermilk, and the fact that it’s your new favorite…plus it’s such a simple recipe! Thanks for another one to get excited about, Averie!
By 7am my time, it’s already 10am on the east coast and my inbox is flooded! I always wake up and feel very scrambled and harried just weeding thru my own email & comments…lol
This is so gorgeous Averie!! Love the colors, and the strawberries. My family always steals all my food too before I can cook with it, lol. Frozen is perfect, especially when they sell 5 lb things of strawberries. I end up throwing so much away if I don’t bake or freeze them!
I hate that they sell berries in larger than 2 lb containers. It’s like they try to force you to buy more and really, I dont want/need more than 2 lbs at once! It goes bad as you say and then they hide the meh berries at the bottom of those containers and they get all smooshed and go bad anyway!
Anything made in one bowl with no sifting of ingredients is a winner in my book. Beautiful photos, as always, Averie!
Thanks, Eva! These photos were hard because everything was so reflective and I wasn’t sure if they really convey how AMAZING this cake was and how much I love it, but I tried!
I love that the cake is a circle. It adds to the presentation. Can’t wait to try it.
Thanks for the post with the tip on the anti-spam plug in. It works and I am so grateful!
Oh so glad that plugin works for you – me too! Have only had like 5 spam in a week….down from, not kidding 500 to 1000 daily!
Yum, this cake looks amazing Averie! Love that this can be made in one bowl. I can almost taste the cake just looking at the screen, love the addition of turbinado sugar for the slight crunch…and oh..the glaze..mmm. Wish I was having this for breakfast :)
I just love a little turbinado on things like this for an added extra little touch!
My goodness.. This looks so incredible. I am making this ASAP..
If you do, LMK!