This cannoli crumb cake is a rich vanilla cake with pockets of cream cheese nestled throughout. The cannoli part comes from the fact that you’ll also add in a touch of cinnamon and mini chocolate chips to the cream cheese mixture.
It’s then topped with a brown sugar, cinnamon and mini chocolate chip crumble making it the perfect crumb or coffee cake.
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Awhile back, a subscriber requested a good coffee cake recipe. I thought that was a great idea, but I didn’t want to just make any old coffee cake.
I LOVE cream cheese and I wanted a way to incorporate that into a cake. I’m also pretty partial to cinnamon and chocolate chips, so I thought, why not add it all together and I came up with this Cannoli Crumb Cake.
Now, you may be asking, why did you name it cannoli crumb cake instead of coffee cake? Ok, here’s why: When I test out new recipes, I usually give some away to as many people that will take it.
I find that most people love being guinea pigs when it’s cake they’re trying out. My son and step-sons are always the first to try them and they’re always very nice with their comments, but I also like getting more ‘constructive’ feedback. For that, I turn to friends.
They’re always very willing to try out new recipes and they give HONEST feedback. So, back to why I named this a crumb cake instead of a coffee cake.
When I started handing out the cake, I called it Cannoli Coffee Cake and several people said they’d never had cake with coffee in it. Well, that’s not really what coffee cake is. It’s more of a cake you’d eat at breakfast with a cup of coffee. There’s no coffee actually in it.
So, to avoid any confusion, I decided to go with Cannoli Crumb Cake. Crumb cake, coffee cake…they’re really pretty much the same.
Alright, let’s get to what is actually in this cake. The cake is a rich vanilla cake with pockets of cream cheese nestled throughout.
The cannoli part comes from the fact that you’ll also add in a touch of cinnamon and mini chocolate chips to the cream cheese mixture. The cake is then topped with a brown sugar, cinnamon and mini chocolate chip crumble. It’s so rich and so good.
Now traditionally a cannoli is made with ricotta cheese, but cream cheese just seemed like a better idea to me and the richness and flavor it adds to the cake, just makes it so good.
Eat it while drinking coffee and call it a coffee cake, or eat it alone and call it crumb cake…it’s your call!
Ok, on to the recipe:
Recipe:
Cannoli Crumb Cake
Ingredients
Cream Cheese Filling:
- 2 8 oz pkgs cream cheese
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
Crumb Topping:
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup melted butter
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
Cake:
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 3 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ cup softened butter
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Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13 x 9 inch pan well and set aside. Before preparing the cake batter, you’ll need to prepare the cream cheese filling and crumb topping
Cream Cheese Filling:
- In a bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add in the the sugar, egg, cinnamon and mini chips and mix well. Set aside.
Crumb Topping:
- In a bowl, add the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and melted butter, Mix well. Add in the mini chocolate chips and mix again. Set aside.
Cake:
- In a mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla. Whisk well.
- Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and mix until all incorporated.
- Add in the softened butter and mix until incorporated.
- Pour half of the batter into a 13 x 9 inch pan. Add the cream cheese filling by spoonfuls onto the batter. Top with the second half of the cake batter. Use a knife to swirl the batter just a bit.
- Sprinkle the crumb topping over the entire cake.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 45 – 50 minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack completely before serving.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Marg B
This was sounding really great but, where’s the COFFEE ?
Kara Jane
LOL! You got me there…it’s in my tummy cuz I drank it all this morning. 😉
Stephanie
Love this recipe so much! It’s perfect with or without a cup of coffee! <3 We've made this recipe at least three times in the last five months!
Kara Jane
Oh yay! I’m so glad you like it! I can’t ever decide whether it’s dessert or breakfast, but either way it’s sort of addicting, right? Thanks for letting me know you love it! 🙂
Jessica
Hi! I have loved your site ever since making this year’s birthday cakes- my children’s birthdays are only two weeks apart, so this time of the year is CAKE TIME!!!! I have since looked around your site for other awesome recipes- and they are all AMAZING! There is just one little thing that bothers me though… While I always read the description (afterall, that’s where the secrets lie), on my 3rd or 4th time looking up the same recipe, I don’t want to have to scroll through all the text to reach the actual recipe! Could you put a “jump to recipe” button on your recipe pages?
Thanks, and keep up the amazing baking!
Kara Jane
Hi Jessica, thanks for your lovely comments! I’m so glad you like the recipes. ? I will think about adding a jump to recipe button. I have not done that up to this point and I’ll be honest as to the reason. The way I make money off the blog is through ad revenue and if no ads show up, because they’re skipped, I don’t get any or as much income from it. So, I’ve hesitated adding a jump to recipe button because of that. The blog takes a lot of time and there are costs involved as well and at this point in my journey, I could use the income and I’m not sure I’m ready to take a pay cut just yet. 😉 It is definitely something I would like to do in the future though and something I want to test out though!
Emma
Wow! The flavors in this cake are amazing but my cake turned out a little dry because I missed calculated the cooking time (US customary to AUS). Do you have any handy hints for cooking this cake from °F to °C?
Kara Jane
Hi Emma, oh goodness I’m sorry about the cooking time difference. I don’t have a lot of hints for converting as I’ve only ever used Fahrenheit, but I would set the oven to 175 C and start checking it at around 40 minutes. I think checking it a little earlier might help, that way you can go ahead and take it out if it’s already finished. Sometimes when it’s baked too long, it will turn out dry. I hope this helps!
Jenel
How do you check this cake for fineness? I am assuming inserting a toothpick would not be effective bc of the cream cheese mixture…..
Kara Jane
The cream cheese mixture will bake and won’t be super creamy, so you should still be able to check somewhat with a toothpick. Having crumbs on the toothpick is totally fine, you just don’t want it to look like raw batter. The tricky part will be the chocolate chips in there as those will be creamy when you try to use the toothpick method. You just have to try it in several spots around the cake. Also the top should be pretty golden brown in color when it’s done. I would just shoot for 45 minutes and as long as it’s not still jiggly (which it shouldn’t be after baking for 45 minutes), then go ahead and pull it out of the oven.
Jenel
Thanks so much! Turned out amazing! And I love your suggestion to put in the microwave for a few seconds! One more question…does it freeze well?
Kara Jane
Oh awesome! So glad it turned out for you! 🙂 I haven’t tried freezing this one, but I think it should be fine frozen though. Just cover it really well with plastic wrap first and then foil. When you take it out to defrost it, I’d let this one defrost in the fridge (since it has cream cheese in it), but leave it all wrapped up. That way the condensation forms on the outside of the package and not on the cake so much. That might help the crumb topping not get super soggy. Once it’s defrosted, then take the wrappings off. I think the only issue that might occur with freezing it is the top might not be as crisp, but maybe defrosting it with the wrappings still one will help that. It’s worth a shot!