Carrot Cake Coffee Cake

Carrot Cake Coffee Cake.

This recipe is a fan favorite for spring and was originally published in 2021. It is also part of this year’s Spring Bucket List! 

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I know it might be confusing – carrot cake, which is like vegetables meets cake, but also still cake, combined with coffee cake, which is also cake but the kind you can eat for breakfast and it will still be totally appropriate and, obviously, cakey?

But no need to be confused.

If you like a carrot cake that tastes just slightly cinnamony and teeters perfectly between springy and dense…

And you like a coffee cake that is loaded with a mega amount of streusel topping…

And you like cakes that look beautiful and taste even more beautiful with a proper shmear of honey butter…

HELLO! Meet your one true match. This one is for you.

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Ingredients You’ll Need To Make This Spring Treat

This is different than a classic carrot cake recipe because of the incredible crumb topping that YOU NEED, but we have a pretty standard baking lineup ahead.

For the cake:

• carrots
• sugar
• butter
• eggs
• all-purpose flour
• baking soda
• cinnamon
• salt

For the streusel topping:

• more butter (yum!!)
• flour
• brown sugar
• cinnamon
• salt

Let’s Make Carrot Cake Coffee Cake

Here’s how we make it (IT’S VERY EASY).

1. Pulse the carrots in a food processor. I hate grating things, especially carrots. I’m not even sorry. Put me on the record. I said it. So, I am not going to make you grate anything! Just run your peeled carrots through the food processor, and if you don’t have a food processor, what are you even doing? You need this post.





2. Make your batter. Grab a large bowl and mix up a very simple batter with eggs, flour, sugar, cinnamon, and (wait for it) butter. BUTTER. Carrot cakes traditionally use vegetable oil. But newsflash: BUTTER IS DELICIOUS. So today we use butter. Obviously.





3. Mix up your streusel layer. Bring all your streusel ingredients together in a small bowl and pulse things up until you get a pebble-like texture.





4. Bake! Grease your pan or put some parchment paper in there. Now it gets baked under an aggressively thick layer of streusel. You can test the cake doneness by sticking a toothpick in the center. If the toothpick comes out clean, it’s good to go!





5. Major YUM! Whatcha waiting for? Drizzle some honey butter on (or, like some readers have done, a layer of cream cheese frosting!) and let’s gooo!

And finally, THIS HAPPENS.

The crumbly topping is just barely crunchy, and the honey butter shmear gets melty-ish because it’s all still a little warm. You have a coffee in your other hand, and it might just be an excellent little afternoon spring hygge moment for you.

Carrot cake coffee cake! I’m telling ya.

Carrot Cake Coffee Cake: Frequently Asked Questions

What size pan do you recommend?

I used a 9-inch round cake pan, but an 8 or 9-inch square or smaller rectangular baking dish would also work.

How can I make the honey butter that goes on top?

It’s super easy! See recipe notes for exact instructions.

Should I use salted or unsalted butter?

Salted butter is best for this recipe!

How can I make this gluten-free?

We have not tested this recipe ourselves with a gluten-free flour alternative, but one reader used almond flour in place of it and said it worked well (however, they also reported that it did not bind together as well as regular flour). We’d probably recommend giving a 1:1 gluten-free flour a try instead as it will likely give you a closer result to the original!

Can I make this ahead of time?

Sure thing! We’d make this just a day ahead of time to make sure it’s still fresh and moist when you serve.

Could I make this with another alternative for butter?

One reader subbed vegetable oil in the cake and coconut oil on the topping and said it worked great! We’d expect a vegan butter to also work well.

Could you use an egg alternative?

While we haven’t tested this with flax or chia eggs, one reader did make this recipe with chia eggs and said it turned out wonderfully!