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.

Coffee Cream Cake with Coffee Icing!

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.

Coffee Cream Cake

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.

How to Make Coffee Cake

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!

Layered Coffee Cake

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.

Slice of Coffee Cream Cake

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!

Slice of Coffee Cake

More Popular Cakes

coffee cream cake
4.57 from 58 votes

Coffee Cream Cake

Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 24 minutes
Freezing Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours 54 minutes
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!

Ingredients

Cake

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.

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Meet Amanda Rettke

Amanda Rettke is the creator of I Am Baker, and the bestselling author of Surprise Inside Cakes: Amazing Cakes for Every Occasion – With a Little Something Extra Inside.Over the course of her 15+ year blogging adventure, she has been featured in and collaborated with the Food Network, New York Times, LA Times, Country Living Magazine, People Magazine, Epicurious, Brides, Romantic Homes, life:beautiful, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Mail, Star Tribune, The Globe and Mail, DailyCandy, YumSugar, The Knot, The Kitchn, and Parade, to name a few.

Reader Comments

  1. I turned this into cupcakes they were wonderful but they kinda stuck to the wrappers any suggestions on how to fix that?

  2. Hello, a couple year back I made this cake and its was watery the batter. For some reason I forgot and tried it again with the same luck. I think two cups of flour is not enough. Can someone help me, my husband loves coffe and would love to make it right

  3. Hello. I tried this coffee cream cake and its heavenly!! The frosting was a bit too sweet for me even though I reduced it to 3 cups. I was wondering if I need to make the adjustments on the other ingredients for the frosting and not just the sugar only? The consistency might be different if I only reduce the sugar (i really dont know). Hope to get your reply. Keep on sharing your wonderful recipes. Best Regards!

  4. Epic failure despite reading all the reviews. Made the cake according to Lee Drummond’s original recipe and used one tsp of baking soda. Cake came out great but needed more than 22 minutes to bake. Cream cheese filling was like soup. Should have trusted my gut that one cup of heavy cream to just one cup of confectionery sugar wouldn’t have worked. I think I ended up adding at least 4 and it still oozed out the sides when the cake layers were stacked. No way was I going to try the icing after reading a review about that all dripping off the cake and resulting in a pooled mess. Now hoping to salvage it by frosting with a coffee buttercream after the cake chills to hopefully firm up the filling. I am not a notice baker and very experienced. It’s a shame there were not more reviews warning people. Caulk this one up for lesson learned.

    1. I’m not sure what you are talking about. Who is Lee Drummond? I don’t think you followed my recipe.

  5. Red Drummond is the Pioneer Woman’s real name who you refer to in the beginning of your recipe description. After my workaround, the cake was a hit. The filling really needs a major adjustment and the coffee buttercream frosting I made instead of the glaze held the cake together and definitely added a more intense coffee taste. Just wanted to give a review of my experience so others could be forewarned.
    The concept of this cake is unique and a great for coffee lovers.

  6. The cake smells delicious. But the 22 minute bake time is too short. I had to ncrease the bake time twice.

    1. Did you make it in the 8in rounds that the recipe called for? Baking for longer than 22 minutes should result in a very dry and hard cake.

  7. The first time I made this cake was few years ago, and it turned out great, but this time it was not good at all. The cake was falling apart and when I pour the coffee icing onto the cake it didn’t covered the entire cake on top but it drips down on side of the pan

  8. Is the icing soft…drippy? I like to make this cake to serve in my deli but icing would need to be firm to hold up as pre-sliced servings. Also, I always follow #7 instructions….it’s the most important.

  9. I was so excited to make this for my coffee loving husband’s birthday, tomorrow. I spent 4hrs in the kitchen (including cleanup) IT’S TERRIBLE We haven’t tasted it yet, but it looks pitiful. I am NOT new to baking and have phenomenal kitchen tools I wish I could include the pictures…. fairly hilarious

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