Pumpkin Coffee Crumb Cake Recipe

If you’re a fan of New York crumb cake and you like seasonal flavors (hello, pumpkin spice!), this Pumpkin Crumb Cake will be your new favorite. It’s moist and dense with pumpkin, and aromatic with warm spices. The thick crumbly layer on top sets it apart from a lot of other pumpkin spice cake recipes.

This pumpkin coffee cake will be your go-to when a friend wants to drop by for a quick chat. Or when you need something sweet to bring to a party. Or hey, maybe even just for a middle-of-the-week-I-made-it-to-Wednesday-treat. I won’t judge, some weeks that’s just the way it goes.

We tested this cake multiple times to make sure it was right based on moisture, spice blend, crumb topping, etc. And it was well worth it, this cake is tried-and-true perfection every single time. While we were testing, we also made sure it worked in a number of different sizes of baking dishes to ensure that you can use whatever baking dish you already have at home.

Serve this pumpkin coffee cake with coffee, tea, or steaming hot apple cider for maximum fall atmosphere. We love bringing this to any sort of fall gathering, school event, or just to have around on a busy week (it stores beautifully!).

If you love a fall treat, we’ve got you covered. Be sure to also try our Pumpkin Scones, Pumpkin Cheesecake, and 30-Minute Baked Pumpkin Donuts.

Here’s what people are saying about this recipe:

“Fantastic cake. I give you a 20 out of 10!”

-Zetty

Why You’ll Love this Recipe

• Easy to make for a crowd. This pumpkin crumb cake is a winner with a crowd. Serve it up for a school event, brunch with friends, or dessert after a dinner party. And if you’re looking for a Thanksgiving or other holiday dessert that isn’t pie, this is a great option!
• Dessert in under an hour. We made sure to keep this recipe easy to make in under an hour from start to finish. It’s great for beginner bakers or kids to help out with too!
• All the fall flavors combined into one cake. This cozy coffee cake is a heartwarming fall treat that uses pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice mix.

2: Assemble and Bake the Coffee Cake

1. Whisk together the oil, brown sugar, egg, pumpkin puree, and vanilla extract.
2. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and the remaining half of the spice mix (or 2 teaspoons pre-made pumpkin pie spice mix); be careful not to over-mix.
3. The batter will be fairly thick.
4. Spread the batter out in the prepared pan.
5. Sprinkle on the crumble topping.
6. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out slightly moist with just a couple crumbs, about 25 to 40 minutes. (Start checking it at 25 minutes; it will take more or less time depending on the size of your pan and whether your pan is glass or metal.)

3: Add the Finishing Touch Before Serving

Choosing the Right Pan

Are you a math person? I’m a weird sort of non-math math person. I’m the type of person who can figure out completely convoluted math word problems quickly. But then, I’m sad to say, my basic math skills – like multiplication and division – are pretty lacking. Sigh. I have absolutely nothing to say for myself.

Mike is always confounded as to how my mind works. He’s the opposite of me, so I guess we complete each other, lol.

In high school, I remember just about every math teacher I ever had telling the class that we’d be using math nearly every day for the rest of our lives. Of course that was usually in response to a wise crack from some student complaining When are we ever going to use this in real life?!

Well, kids, I can tell you that if you want to have a food blog, you’ll be using fractions, ratios, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division almost every time you cook.

For example, take this recipe. Which by the way, bears noting that it tastes like autumn and smells like heaven. Read on to discover math in real life.

The Math

When I developed this recipe, I originally made this gorgeous crumble-topped pumpkin coffee cake recipe in a 7 x 11-inch rectangular baking dish. It’s an odd size, I get that. Normally you’d see 9 by 13-inch or 8 by 8-inch, but this recipe just fit perfectly into a 7 by 11. And I knew someone would ask me if they can use a different size baking dish. (I don’t mind, so don’t feel bad about asking questions! But I like to be prepared if possible.)

So I wanted to calculate the area of the baking dish and see what would be comparable before the question crept up.

For this size rectangular dish, the area is length multiplied by width, or 7 X 11 = 77 inches².

Easy enough, but I knew that in order to find a comparably sized dish, I would need to look at circular dishes and I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to calculate the area of a circle. Enter Google…I found the equation and it all came flooding back to me. (Well, not really all, lol.)

For a circle, A = ∏r².

Long story short and to spare you any math-related boredom, the closest size pan is a 10-inch round pan with an area of 78.5 inches². So for this pumpkin coffee cake recipe, feel free to use a 7 by 11-inch rectangular baking dish or 10-inch round pan. Whatever works.

Note that this recipe will also work just fine either using an 8 by 8-inch square baking dish or a 9-inch round pan. However, you will most likely have to increase the baking time a bit to account for a slightly smaller pan being used. If you try it in a different sized pan, let me know how it goes! (Update: I made this pumpkin cake in an 8 by 8-inch metal pan and it takes about 35 to 40 minutes at 350ºF.)