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.
Please tell me if I can use brewed coffee in this cake and icing and how much to use.
Thank you.
Wow amazing moist light cake. I will definitely make again. I had to skip the cream cheese whipped icing as I couldn’t for the life of me get it to come together. I made your Swiss meringue icing but flavoured it with coffee. Next time I will try and make it like you did. We also made the coffee icing and that was so good, I think we just kept eating it with our spoons instead.
Even before my husband and I were married, I’ve always made him a birthday cake. I believe I found this recipe in 2018 and I’ve been pretty much making him this cake ever since lol. It’s a hit! I don’t even like coffee, but I LOVE this cake!
We can use oil instead of butter in coffee cake?
the worst cake i have ever made, the cake, filling and frosting were disgusting, mine looked nothing like yours it was a sloppy mess, everything went in the trash. what a waste of time and ingredients. if i could of rated it a NO STAR i would have.
Sorry you feel that way. As I stated in the post, it’s based on a Pioneer Woman recipe that is in her book and on her website. Both with rave reviews. So that leads me to belive that if you had errors with the cake, filling, AND frosting, it may not have been an issue with the recipe.
Hi,
Can you use self rising flour, in place of all purpose flour, salt and baking soda?
Delicious cake! Hubby ate the whole cake himself!! For those remarking about the filling, just keep the mixer on high speed for several minutes & it becomes very fluffy. The coffee icing is great, let it sit for 5 minutes just like recipe says before pouring. My only confusion was typed recipe said baking soda/video says baking powder? Tastes great!!!
I’m ready to make this cake again. Last time I made it the 2 cups of flour with 9 inches pan only gives me 2 layers instead of 4, it’s too thin to slice in half. the coffee icing was also dripped down to the pan and I think was too loose and made a mess. Anyone has this issue?
I would like to add some cocoa to this recipe. How much can I add to the cake without changing the consistency?
I have been this cake for years now for birthdays and holidays and there is nothing left afterwards. After the initial making of this cake, I did have to reduce the sugar in the coffee icing for the diabetics who can’t resist the temptation of this wonderfully yummy cake.