Coffee cakes are sweet baked goods served with coffee or tea. They are usually finished with a thin glaze, powdered sugar, or streusel topping. Frosting is typically a sweet glaze made with powdered sugar and milk. Streusel is a common topping made with flour, butter, sugar, and sometimes nuts. Coffee cake frosting is usually flavored to match the cake.
Coffee cakes are typically sweet baked goods traditionally served with coffee or tea. While a regular cake may be called a “coffee cake” if it is flavored with coffee, the term usually refers to a cake designed to be eaten as a breakfast cake or served with coffee. There are many different flavors of coffee cake frosting to choose from, although these cakes aren’t usually frosted in the traditional sense; most often they’re finished with a thin glaze, dusting of powdered sugar, or streusel type of topping.
Frosting for coffee cakes usually refers to a sweet glaze. The icing is traditionally made by mixing powdered sugar, milk, and other special-tasting ingredients. It is typically poured or drizzled over the cake. Thicker frostings such as buttercream frosting or hardening royal icing are not generally used as icing for coffee cakes. People who prefer these types of frosting can use them and they should still taste good, but that’s not the traditional way coffee cakes are served.
Coffee cake frosting doesn’t have to be frosting at all. Some cakes are so moist and flavorful that a dusting of icing sugar is enough to top off the cake. Very moist coffee cakes that are already incredibly sweet are often eaten without any type of coffee cake frosting. Cake eaten without frosting is sometimes referred to as a snack, but coffee cake ingredients can still be used.
One of the more common types of coffee cake toppings is known as streusel. This is a crumb topping that usually contains ingredients like flour, butter, and sugar. Sometimes chopped walnuts are added to make a nut streusel. Often, this is the only topping for a coffee cake instead of powdered sugar or icing. Streusel-topped cakes are also sometimes called crumb cakes, but crumb cakes usually have a much larger percentage of crumb topping than coffee cakes.
Baking coffee streusel typically doesn’t require any additional cooking time since the streusel is usually added when the cake goes into the oven. The ingredients are to be mixed together to form a crumb mixture which is sprinkled on top of the dough. Coffee cake frosting that is a thicker frosting or cream will almost never bake; the icing is generally poured after the cake has cooled to prevent it from thinning too much and running down.
Coffee cake frosting is usually flavored to match the cake in some way. Cakes that contain fruit can be topped with a frosting that has a hint of their flavor, for example, such as orange frosting for an orange and cranberry pie or cinnamon frosting for an apple cinnamon pie. Vanilla frosting made from powdered sugar, water, and vanilla extract is a standalone that typically works well with any flavor. Streusel or sprinkled icing sugar also tends to work well on almost any type of coffee cake.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
