Enjoy a festive coffee cake made with gingerbread spices and topped with a pecan streusel and maple glaze! If you're serving it for Christmas, try making it in a Christmas tree-shaped pan and topping it with holiday sprinkles.
Enjoy a piece of this coffee cake with a cup of Irish Cream Coffee. Click here for more Christmas recipes!
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Ingredients
This recipe is made up of three parts:
- Coffee Cake: unsalted butter, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, greek yogurt, flour, baking powder, baking soda, table salt
- Gingerbread Spice Streusel: to make the streusel filling you’ll need pecans, unsalted butter, brown sugar, flour, salt, and ground ginger, clove, and nutmeg
- Gingerbread Glaze: Mix together powdered sugar, maple syrup, milk, and gingerbread spice to make the glaze
🧈 The Temperature of Your Butter
You're going to need both cold and room temperature butter for this recipe.
Use cold butter for the struesel. Keep the butter in the fridge up until you add it to the food processor. This way, the butter will hold some of its shape instead of creaming with the other ingredient. Then, we put the struesel in the fridge until it's time to time to use it to help maintain the butter's shape as well.
Use room temperature butter for the coffee cake. Room temperature butter is going to cream better with the sugar in step 3. You'll know the butter is at temperature when you can gently press into it and your fingerprint will leave an indent.
Substitutions
- Greek Yogurt: You can use the same amount of sour cream in place of the greek yogurt or ¾ cup buttermilk
- Pecans: Pecans add both flavor and a crunchy texture to the streusel, but you can leave them out entirely if you like or swap them with another nut. Keep in mind that whatever you substitute with will change the flavor!
- Serve topped with some Sugared Cranberries for a little bit of tartness!
🎄Coffee Cake Glaze and Christmas Sprinkles
I like to add some maple syrup to the glaze for a little extra sweetness! Plus, using both maple and gingerbread spices gives this treat all my favorite winter flavors! However, you can make the glaze with just powdered sugar and milk if you'd prefer.
Optional: Drizzle the glaze in lines across the coffee cake and then place sprinkles along them so they look like string lights. I used red, white, and green sprinkles that came in a decorating kit. Here are some similar Lightbulb Sprinkles by Wilton.
👩🍳 Kitchen Equipment You'll Need to Make This Recipe
- Baking Pan: Use either the Christmas tree baking dish linked below or a metal 8 x 8 baking dish. You may need to increase the baking time if you use a glass or ceramic dish.
- Electric Mixer: Either a standing or hand-held mixer will be helpful for creaming the butter and sugar
- Food Processor: A food processor will be best at getting the pecans and butter to a crumbley texture and size
🎄Christmas Tree Baking Dish
I used this Wilton Christmas Tree Baking Dish to for a festive serving dish, but you can also make this coffee cake in a square baking dish. I would suggest making it in an 8x8 but know that it will fill it to the very top!
If you use a 9x9 dish, I’d suggest checking to see if it’s baked 5-10 minutes sooner, since it won’t be as thick.
Ingredients
STRUESEL:
- ¾ cup pecans
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter cold
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ¾ cup flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon clove
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
CAKE:
- ½ cup unsalted butter room temperature
- ¾ cup granulated white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup greek yogurt
- 1 ½ cup flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
GLAZE:
- ½ cup Powdered sugar
- 1 taplesoon Maple Syrup
- 1 tablespoon Milk
- Christmas Sprinkles optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and spray the either a christmas tree-shaped or 8x8 baking dish with non-stick spray.
- Pulse all the ingredients for the struesel in a food processor until it’s a crumbly texture. Keep in the fridge until it’s time to use it.
- Using an electric mixer fitted with a beater attachment, cream the butter and sugar. Add in the eggs, greek yogurt, and vanilla extract. Beat on a low speed until everything is just combined.
- Add in the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda) and mix on a slow speed. The batter will be thick and a little lumpy when mixed together.
- Scoop half of the batter into your baking dish. Sprinkle half the struesel across it evenly. Scoop and dollop the rest of the batter on top of the stuesel layer so that it’s fully covered. Sprinkle the rest of the struesel on top.
- Bake the coffee cake until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center, about 45-50 minutes. Set the coffee cake on a wire rack to cool in the pan while you make the glaze.
- Whisk together the powdered milk, maple syrup and milk until smooth. Add more milk as needed to thin the glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the coffee cake and serve warm.
Please note, Holiday Sweets N Treats isn't a professional nutritionist. Any and all nutritional information shared is an estimate. If you're following a specific diet or counting calories, we suggest you use the nutrition calculator of your choice. Calories can vary depending on the brands and products used.
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