This festive pumpkin gingerbread coffee cake is made with pumpkin pure, pumpkin pie spice and molasses and topped with a layer of cinnamon streusel topping. It’s easy to make an your family will love it!
Coffee cake for breakfast during the holidays is a must! There is nothing like waking up on Thursday morning, pouring a cup of coffee, grabbing a piece of coffee cake and watching the parade with family.
Traditions are such an important part of holidays and mine wouldn’t be the same without some form of coffee cake! We love our coffee cake for Thanksgiving and Christmas in our household.
And I’m SO excited to share this recipe with my family this year. Last year I made these coffee cake muffins and they were a huge hit, but I wanted to do something more fall-themed this year. Enter pumpkin AND gingerbread.
I think molasses is such an underrated baking ingredient in my opinion! It adds so much flavor to baked goods, like these giant ginger cookies. Did you know brown sugar is just regular granulated sugar mixed with molasses? The darker the brown sugar, the more molasses in it.
In this recipe there’s a ton of flavor going on! From the molasses, the pumpkin, the pumpkin pie spice and a little bit of an unusual ingredient: cornmeal.
You’ve likely already have the cornmeal in your pantry to make cornbread muffins for Thanksgiving, so use a little extra in this pumpkin gingerbread coffee cake recipe! The reason we’re using cornmeal in this recipe is for extra flavor and texture.
We’re only using a small amount of cornmeal in comparison to the flour to keep it light and fluffy, but just enough to add some depth.
In addition to all the flavor, there are a few reasons I love this coffee cake:
- You don’t have to make an extra batch of crumble for the streusel topping. Instead of making more, you just remove a portion of the dry ingredients before mixing in the wet ingredients to sprinkle on top. Instant streusel topping.
- It’s going to make your house smell amazing! Save that pumpkin candle for another day because half way through baking your entire house will smell like pumpkin and gingerbread.
- This recipe feeds a crowd! Perfect for all those relatives you may have staying at your place.
The last, but definitely not least, favorite part of those recipe is how easy it is to make in advance. Coffee cake is one of those recipes that freeze really well, so you can make it up to 3 months ahead of time and have instant delicious breakfast.
How to freeze coffee cake:
To freeze coffee cake, place each piece, or the entire cake in an air tight container. Leave in the freezer for up to 3 months. To bake, let it thaw overnight and heat at 300°F for 20 minutes or until warm.
I highly recommend serving your coffee cake with a hot beverage! If you aren’t a coffee fan, hot tea or hot chocolate also pair really well with a big piece of pumpkin gingerbread coffee cake.
I hope you all love this recipe and have an amazing holiday season with your family and friends!
Made this for Thanksgiving breakfast. I was a bit skeptical of the crumb topping because it didn’t look like the traditional crumb topping and I think I would like a more traditional crumb topping better, but the cake itself was delicious and a big hit.
I think I was expecting a sweeter cake? It was okay, but maybe we are not accustomed to the molasses flavor. It came out looking very pretty!
This coffee cake looks incredible!
This cake is so amazing. My husband is not a fan of cakes but absolutely loved this. It also made my house smell delicious. I’ll be making this for Thanksgiving this year.
I made this delectible cake and it is just as delicious as you said it woudl be.
Thank you so much. This will be great for Thanksgiving. (I had to try it before and I am glad I did_