Coffee Cream Cake is four delicious layers of coffee-flavored cake made with a stabilized whipped cream filling and drizzled with coffee-flavored icing. It’s like having your coffee and eating it, too! For another decadent layered cake, check out my White Layer Cake With Fudgy Brownie.
Ingredients & Substitutions
Coffee: Since this is a coffee cake, we can’t forget about the coffee! You will need 2 tablespoons of instant coffee for the cake and another tablespoon for the icing. It brings out the coffee flavor in every bite!
Whipped Cream Filling: To best hold its shape when added between cake layers, I use my stabilized whipped cream.
Icing: This icing on the cake, literally, has more coffee flavor. It is drizzled over all of the delicious layers before cutting and serving.
Why Freeze The Cake Layers
The purpose of freezing the layers of cake comes down to the ease of assembling the cake. When building a layer cake, the last thing you want to happen is for the cake to crumble and fall apart! Chilling it helps with this.
Can I Make This Cake Ahead Of Time?
Yes! You can get a couple of parts of this coffee cream cake made in advance so it’s ready to assemble when you are! Once the cakes have been baked and frozen (part of the instructions), wrap them and store them in freezer-safe bags or containers. They can be frozen for up to 2-3 months. When ready to assemble, let the cakes thaw in the refrigerator for a few hours, up to overnight. You can also get the stabilized whipped cream made ahead of time. The whipped cream can be stored in the refrigerator for 2-3 days or frozen for up to 1-2 months!
How To Store Coffee Cream Cake
To store coffee cream cake, cover it and store it in the refrigerator. It should be refrigerated because of layers of stabilized whipped cream. Enjoy the cake within 2-3 days for the best results.
The Pioneer Women’s Coffee Cake (slightly adapted)
The recipe in the book is a slight variation of the recipe on Miss Ree’s site. Hope you love this Coffee Cream Cake as much as we do!
More Popular Cakes
Coffee Cream Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cup (2 sticks / 227 g) unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons instant coffee
- 1 cup hot water
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 cups (400 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- ½ cup (122.5 g) buttermilk, room temperature
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
Stabilized Whipped Cream Filling
- 2 ounces cream cheese, softened
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 2 cups (476 g) heavy cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pinch kosher salt
Coffee Icing
- ¾ cup (1 ½ sticks / 170 g) unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee
- ¼ cup (60.5 g) half-and-half, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 4 cups (500 g) confectioners' sugar
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 2, 8-inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray and line each with parchment paper. Set aside.
- To a medium saucepan over medium heat, add butter. Once the butter has melted, add the instant coffee and hot water. Remove from heat. Whisk until fully combined. Set aside.
- To a large bowl, add flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Add the butter mixture. Stir to fully combine.
- To a separate bowl, add buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Stir to combine. Pour over the batter, whisking until well combined.
- Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared cake pans.
- Bake for 24-26 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.
- Let the cakes cool to room temperature. Once cool, cut each cake layer horizontally into two layers, creating a total of 4 layers.
- Place the layers onto a lined baking sheet and transfer to the freezer for at least 2 hours, up to overnight.
Stabilized Whipped Cream Filling
- Once the cake layers are frozen, prepare the stabilized whipped cream.
- Place the bowl and whisk attachment from your stand mixer into the freezer to chill for about 15 minutes. Starting with a cold bowl will help the cream whip up faster and with more volume.
- Once chilled, add the cream cheese and sugar to the bowl. Mix on medium-high speed until fully combined and no lumps remain.
- With the mixer off, pour in the heavy cream. Resume mixing on medium speed until soft peaks have formed (peaks droop slightly). Stop the mixer.
- Using a rubber spatula, scrape the bottom of the bowl to incorporate all of the cream cheese.
- With the mixer back on medium speed, mix until stiff peaks have formed. (Stiff peaks refer to the whipped cream peaks that stand straight up and hold their shape firmly.)
- Finally, add in the vanilla and a pinch of salt, being careful not to overmix.
- On a cake stand, place one layer of cake. Add ⅓ of the whipped cream filling, spreading it out to the edges. Repeat with the next two layers, topping with the final cake layer.
- Once assembled, make the icing.
Icing
- To a medium saucepan over low heat, add butter. Stir until melted.
- Add instant coffee, half-and-half, and vanilla. Whisk to combine. Remove from heat.
- To a large bowl, add confectioners' sugar. Add the butter mixture and whisk until no lumps remain.
- Evenly drizzle the icing over the cake.
Did you make this recipe?
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I throw out enough sour milk, to buy both heavy cream and half & half seems excessive. Is it possible to use just one of these for both parts of this recipe???
I followed the directions even though I was not sure about baking “soda.” When time was up the cake was not done and it was bubbling and foaming all over my oven. I suspect it should have been baking “powder” am I right?
So sorry! The directions and ingredients are written correctly.
I am making this cake tonight. Do I need to refrrigerate the cake after it is frosted or can it sit out
It can sit out
I tried the coffee cream cake. The filling was way too runny. Did you use a CUP of heavy cream??? I was making it for a church picnic. Needless to say I stopped at the store and bought a watermelon for my passing dish
What does 1/4 CUP OF HALF AND HALF mEAN in coffee cake recipie
I’m going to try making this but my friend loves chocolate too so I’m going to either use a chocolate cake mix and add coffee or this recipe and add chocolate coco powder to it . Any suggestions???
What is the purpose of putting the cake layers in the freezer?
For those of you that don’t know… Half and half is in the dairy section… It’s half wholemilk and half light cream. I believe in the UK they just call it half cream.
It can be substituted with evaporated milk if you can’t get it.
I am not a coffee fan, but enjoyed this VERY much. Since I have trouble slicing cakes in half, I ended up making mine into five little ones using the bits and pieces of the broken cakes and my potpie dishes.
Baking. Coffee cake today. Making larger one using lamington tin. Making two. Birthday 🍰
8″ SS pans very shiny…layers only rose about 30%, not enough to slice without crumbling. Any ideas.
I agreed with you, too thin to slice in half, so need to make 2 batches of cake to make 4 layers. I only did 2 layers by following the recipe. Since I only have 2 later, I cut out half of coffee icing, haven’t try the cake yet but it smells great