The Coffee Cake Mistake That Will Ruin Your Coffee Break Every Time

Coffee cake has a texture unto itself. Neither truly cake nor a completely crumbly crisp, the beauty of coffee cake is that it brings both baked goods together in perfect, delicious harmony. Coffee cake enthusiasts are likely well aware, but this dense, sweet cake is called coffee cake because it's meant to be eaten alongside a strong cup of coffee, rather than flavored with its bold aroma. Like biscotti, scones, and snappable cookies, coffee cake's concentrated consistency is designed with an accompanying beverage in mind. However, when baking a coffee cake at home, achieving this just-right density is rife with pitfalls. Too little butter and your streusel topping won't clump together. Too cold ingredients and your batter won't come together. And, worst of all, too much mixing and your dense coffee cake crumb will be more reminiscent of a cement block than a square of cake.

Overmixing your baked goods is a common baking mistake. Even by hand, mixing together your ingredients starts to knock air out of the batter and your light and airy texture will start to deflate stir by stir. Particularly with cakes, the more you mix, the denser your cake will be. That's why it's actually better for your cake batter to have a few lumps and bumps instead of a perfectly smooth consistency. Unlike other cake recipes, coffee cakes are plenty dense already, so overmixing and the resulting tough texture are even more ruinous.

With a few tips in mind, you'll be able to create the perfect coffee cake for your coffee break every time. First, be sure to use room temperature ingredients. If you notice that your eggs and butter just won't seem to mix into your batter, they're probably too cold from the refrigerator. With room temperature ingredients, you'll simply need less stirring to achieve the consistency you're looking for. Second, you want to mix the batter until all the ingredients are just, and we mean just, incorporated. Not a single stir more. This is easier to judge if you're using a spatula and mixing by hand. As mentioned, a few lumps are better than no air at all.

While we don't mean to scare you, it is possible to undermix your batter in an attempt to avoid overmixing it. Some stirring is necessary to activate the gluten in the batter, and without it, your cake's structure won't develop at all. Hit the sweet spot of just incorporated as opposed to well incorporated or not incorporated at all to avoid the possible dramatic outcomes of an either super crumbly or unpleasantly gluey coffee cake.