Spiced Orange Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Espresso Streusel

Tastes like the breakfast of an autumn morning 🍂

This is a lightly spiced, orange zesty, autumnal inspired coffee cake. The texture is extremely bouncy, not at all dry but noticeably crumbly and a bit dense, a perfect coffee companion! The espresso streusel offers a subtle burnt sugar type of bitterness perfect for a cool fall day.

Serve with PSL PLS! 🎃

This cake has been a work in progress for a while and I’m excited to share it with you all. Thank you all for being here, truly. I can’t say it enough, I’m so happy that you experience the same love for creating things and eating sugar that I do.

I really want to spend more time over here! Even though I don’t post as often as I’d like it’s really important to me to make sure I’m fully confident in everything I’m putting out there. I only want to share recipes that I would make again & again. I don’t take it lightly that ingredients are becoming more expensive, and maybe for a lot of you downtime is scarce. When I get lost in coffee cake tunnel vision I remind myself it’s part of the process and I love so much, and I wouldn’t feel good about sharing something I didn’t throughly test in multiple ways first.

All that’s to say! Cake! Breakfast! Fall!

Makes roughly between 12-18 servings, takes roughly 50 minutes to make including baking time but not including the time spend chilling the streusel. Stores better at room temperature.

Who am I to tell you how long it should take to make a cake? have fun with it, don’t rush yourself, get lost in a moment of bake therapy, baking should feel good.

Needed equipment:

Hand and/or stand mixer(s)

2 Large mixing bowls

2 Small mixing bowls

Kitchen scale

Nonstick 9x13 sheet cake pan

Parchment paper

Silicone/rubber spatula

Zest grater, ladle, measuring spoons

Dry ingredients:

325g All-purpose flour

165g Unsalted butter, cut into cubes, room temperature

42g Light brown sugar

1 tsp Salt

3/4th tsp Baking soda

2 tsp Baking powder

40g Cornstarch

2 tsp Cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp Allspice

1/4th tsp Ground clove

Wet ingredients:

3 Large eggs, room temperature

215g White granulated sugar

Zest from 2 large oranges

198g Whole milk yogurt, room temperature

1 1/2 tsp Orange extract

1 tsp Almond extract

Streusel topping/filling ingredients:

175g Light brown sugar

75g All-purpose flour

1 tsp Ground cinnamon

2 tsp Instant espresso powder*

1/2 tsp Almond extract

3 tbsp Unsalted butter, melted

1/2 tsp Salt

Notes:

• The espresso in the streusel is subtle but is noticeable, it adds a nice balance of bitterness to the overall sweetness of the brown sugar, however! if this flavor doesn’t resonate with you simply omit the espresso powder for a classic cinnamon streusel.

• The streusel needs to be chilled before using, you will need to refrigerate it for about an hour. I like making the streusel in advance the same day so I don’t need to worry about when it’s cold all the way through and it will be ready when it’s time.

• If you prefer a classic coffee cake you can remove the orange extract/replace it with vanilla extract or paste, and remove the orange zest.

• For the orange zest I used cara cara oranges which are quite large, you can also use navel oranges, if they’re on the smaller side use the zest from an additional orange so the flavor really comes through. If you don’t have orange extract replace with vanilla extract but do not use an artificial tasting orange extract or flavoring, it will overpower the other flavors. I used Nielsen-Massey brand extract.

• Be sure to add the 42g of light brown sugar in the cake batter in with the dry ingredients/flour mixture and NOT to the white sugar/egg mixture, beating it with the eggs will cause excessive moisture in the batter.

• You can use a stand mixer instead of a hand mixer for both reverse creaming the butter, and beating the sugar and eggs, I prefer the control of the hand mixer for this recipe, but also found that the stand mixer is really easy and fast for creaming the butter, however you’ll need to scrape the bottom and side of the bowl a few times to make sure you don’t leave any large chunks of unincorporated butter. I recommend using a hand mixer for the rest of the recipe.

• The ingredients really do need to be room temperature to achieve the correct texture and a consistent bake, make sure the desired ingredient temperatures are achieved before starting this recipe.

Topping/filling streusel:

1. In a small bowl add melted butter and follow with brown sugar, almond extract, espresso powder, cinnamon, salt, and flour. Using a fork or small spatula mix dry ingredients with butter til fully combined, scraping the bowl down often. Mixture will be crumbly but should be an even color with no streaks of butter, espresso powder, or flour remaining.

2. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour, til chilled all the way through. This will prevent mixture from sinking when layered in the center of the cake.

Cake batter:

1. Prepare 9 x 13 sheet cake pan, line just the width of pan with parchment, leaving a few inches of excess paper on both ends, and spray evenly with a light coating of cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl- flour, cornstarch, light brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and clove. Whisk together till everything is evenly distributed and no clumps of brown sugar remain.

3. Drop cubes of room temperature butter on top of dry mixture, starting low and working up to medium-high speed using a hand mixer beat butter into dry ingredients till fully combined, scraping sides and bottom of bowl before stopping. The final texture should look sandy, with no noticeable large lumps of butter.

4. In a small bowl combine yogurt with almond extract, and orange extract, whisk to combine and set aside.

5. In a separate large bowl combine white sugar and zest in orange peels, using a fork or your fingers rub zest and sugar together till sugar is fragrant, an even color, and zest is fully incorporated. Add in eggs and beat together til increased in volume (about 1/3rd increased), and mixture is noticeably lightened, and slightly thicker. This step takes about 3-4 minutes.

6. Using a measuring cup or ladle add 1/3 of butter/flour crumb to egg/sugar bowl and mix on lowest setting with hand mixer til just incorporated, you can also whisk by hand. Add 1/2 of yogurt mixture and continue mixing on low til just combined, repeat with another 1/3 of dry ingredients, then follow with second 1/2 of the yogurt mixture, and end with the final 1/3rd of dry ingredients, each time mixing til just combined, do not over mix! The final consistency will be extremely thick- this will prevent the filling from sinking. Use a spatula to scrape down bowl and gently fold in any unincorporated ingredients.

7. Carefully pour 1/2 of batter into prepared pan and smooth out with a spatula to create the bottom layer of cake, spread as evenly as you can. Sprinkle half of the filling/topping mixture over the first half of the batter, break up any large clumps as you go to avoid any sinkage due to heavy lumps. Pour the remaining batter on top, take your time to smooth the batter over the filling, it is a little challenging and you don’t want to move the filling as you go. Once you have finished spreading the top layer out sprinkle the remaining streusel over top half of the cake, again breaking up large clumps as you go.

8. Bake on center oven rack for 30-35 minutes, a toothpick should come out mostly clean with no visible batter spots when poked in the center of the cake. You may see residue from the filling but there should be little to no crumbs.

9. When finished baking allow cake to cool for 10-15 minutes in pan, use a butter knife to free the ends of the cake that aren’t lined with parchment. Firmly grab parchment paper by both sides and VERY carefully slide onto a drying rack. Be sure to have rack right next to pan and move the cake over the counter to avoid any possibly of floor time. You can also leave cake in pan but be careful to avoid scratching the pan if you do this.

I hope you all enjoy this recipe and that this helps you get excited for autumn flavors, they’re just around the corner! Thank you again!

-Esther 🍊