A classic sour cream coffee cake with a filling of brown sugar, pecans, and brown sugar.
- Prep Time:
15 mins - Cook Time:
40 mins - Total Time:
55 mins

One drawback of writing a food blog is the need to always be trying new recipes. Though that’s usually a good thing, sometimes our favorites get shoved to the back of the cooking queue and are forgotten. That was the case for this old favorite, Sour Cream Coffee Cake.
Fortunately, my husband recently reminded me this coffee cake hadn’t yet made it to the blog and it probably deserved to be. Indeed, it would have been a shame to let this tender cake with its filling of brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon be lost. So today’s recipe is new to the blog but it’s been around forever.
We have had this recipe for so long that our copy was printed on a dot-matrix printer. Anybody still remember (or even know) what those were?
Like the buttermilk pancake recipe I recently posted, I don’t consider this recipe to be the end-all-be-all recipe of coffee cakes. However, it is our family’s favorite sour cream coffee cake and we have yet to find a version we like better.
If this is your first time making this coffee cake, don’t be discouraged when you get to the part where you have to spread the second half of the batter over the filling. It will look like there isn’t enough batter and you’ll be convinced I mis-typed the size of the pan. I get it. I’ve been there. I was either too generous with the bottom layer of the cake or I didn’t beat the butter and sugar enough to get the right volume of cake batter. If any of these things happen, don’t worry. This recipe is very forgiving. The cake will still bake up fine even if there is a patchwork of filling and cake batter for the top layer.
Family Favorite Sour Cream Coffee Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 12-15 servings
- Category: Breakfast, Snack
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
A classic sour cream coffee cake with a filling of brown sugar, pecans, and brown sugar.
Ingredients
For the filling
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
For the cake
- 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup whole milk
Instructions
- Prep oven and pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9×13 baking pan. Set aside.
- Make filling. Stir all of the filling ingredients together in a medium bowl until evenly crumbly. Set aside.
- Beat butter. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs and beat again until well combined.
- Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Mix wet ingredients. In another bowl or glass measuring cup, whisk together the sour cream and milk.
- Mix together. With the mixer running on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture to the butter-sugar mixture, mixing well after each addition.
- Layer batter and filling. Spread half the batter in the pan, and sprinkle evenly with the filling mixture. Spread the remaining batter over the filling mixture.
- Bake. Bake the cake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it.
Notes
- The batter is fairly thick and it can be be difficult to spread over the filling. It works best to drop spoonfuls of the batter on the filling and then use a small offset spatula to spread the batter out until it is smooth and even.
- Make sure the butter and eggs are at room temperature. Also be sure to beat the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. This will ensure that the cake batter has a lot of volume which will also help with spreading the batter in the pan.
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