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?
Thank you for making my recipe! You took pictures, right? Well go ahead and post them on Instagram! Be sure to mention me @iambaker and use the hashtag #YouAreBaker.
Is it possible to have the ingredients in metric measurements…..cup measures are really difficult in the uk…we have so many different sizes…id love to try this recipe…thank you
You can Google the conversions. I do that when trying recipes that have metric measurements. I just made it and I think it’s going to be awesome! When cutting the cake, I cut a little unevenly and had to remove a little sliver off. Darn! LOL. IT WAS YUMMY!!!
What a fun cake to make! Mine isn’t as pretty as the one in the picture but we haven’t cut it yet either. We invited our friends over for the unveiling! If it tastes as good baked as it did while making it, I’m in big trouble! Ha ha! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
i am going to be making the coffee cream cake for a friend in 2 weeks,, yum
Everything beautiful. Trying everything.
You are amazing
I just made this cake, but I don’t think cakes are supposed to have a “spare tire.” One of my layers cracked at some point and is seriously bulging out in the middle. I was planning to take this to a church function tomorrow, but my son laughed and told me I should leave this one at home. It looks ridiculous, but I don’t know about the cake, but that filling and icing are to die for! I will definitely try this again, hopefully without any incidents. LOL
For us older ones without updated equipment, could you also have a forward to email so we can print the recipe?
I agree. I would like to print the recipe so I can make the cake.
I love the indepth prep and ingredients in your recipes
Can you substitute prepared coffee instead of instant?
Is there a sugar-free version??