Cowboy Coffee Cake Recipe (buttermilk coffeecake) (2024)

Why you’ll love this coffee cake recipe

• You have options! Buttermilk or milk mixed with lemon juice or vinegar and the choice to use butter, margarine, or shortening.
• With so many options you may have everything you need to make this cake in your cabinets right now.
• It’s the perfect breakfast time treat.

Ingredients

See recipe card for exact amount.

Ingredient Notes

flour– all purpose flour works great.

butter, margarine or shortening– we use unsalted butter. Margarine, shortening or butter flavored shortening will also work in this recipe.

buttermilkor sour milk– I like buttermilk, you can use sour milk if you have the stuff for it.

brown sugar– light brown sugar is what we use, dark brown sugar will also work.

eggs– large eggs.

leavening agents– both baking powder and baking soda are used to help our coffee cake rise.

spices– ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg give this cake great flavor.

salt– just a bit, regular salt, sea salt or kosher salt will all work.

nuts– a soft nut like pecans or walnuts are a great choice.

How to make sour milk buttermilk substitute

Put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice OR vinegar for every 1 cup of milk to a measuring cup, add enough milk to equal 1 cup.Let it stand for 5-10 minutes.

For this specific recipe you will put 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice in at least a 2 cup measuring cup and fill it up with enough milk to equal 1 1/3 cups.

How to make cowboy coffee cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and spray a 9″ X 13″ cake pan with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl combine flour,brown sugar, and salt.
3. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using apastry cutteruntil the mixture resemblescoarse crumbs, set aside 1/2cup of crumbs.
4. Add the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg to the remainingcrumb mixtureand stir to combine.
5. Mix thewell-beaten eggsinto the buttermilk. Dump theegg mixtureinto thedry mixtureall at once and stir until well combined.
6. Pour batterinto prepared pan.
7. Add chopped nuts to theremaining crumbsand mix until combined. Sprinkle on top of cake batter and bake in apreheated oven25-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. Allow to cool a bit and serve warm.

Tips

• Use cold butter or margarine. You don’t want the butter to be too warm when you cut it into thedry ingredients.
• If you don’t have apastry cutterthere are several ways you can cut the butter into the flour.MasterClasshas a great article that explains 5 ways to do this. This is the first thing I have made since I bought mypastry cutterand I found it was good to start the process and I finished it with my hands. Often times I find that the best kitchen tools I have are my hands.
• While the recipe in the cookbook calls for the cake to bake for 35-40 minutes we have found that our cake bakes in more like25-30 minutes.

How to tell when cake is done

• The cake will spring back when touched and no indentation will remain.
• The edges will start to brown.
• A toothpick inserted into the center of the cake will come out clean.
• The edges of the cake will start to pull away from the sides of the pan.
• Your nose knows, it will start to smell fragrant.

Storage

Store cake in an airtight container atroom temperature. Just like any cake this is better the first few days and will start to dry out the longer you have it. It can be stored in the refrigerator if you prefer your cake to be chilled.

Cowboy Coffee Cake (Buttermilk Coffeecake)

Mindy Boyd

Cowboy Coffee Cake (buttermilk coffeecake) is an old classic dessert easy enough to make every day and fancy enough for special occasions.

I earn a small commission from Instacart for qualifying purchases.

Nutrition Facts

Calories: 236kcal | Carbohydrates: 33g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 38mg | Sodium: 228mg | Potassium: 100mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 19g | Vitamin A: 267IU | Vitamin C: 0.02mg | Calcium: 73mg | Iron: 1mg

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was with a comment below.

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