Cream Cheese Coffee Cake with Summer Berries

This easy coffee cake is not too sweet so it's perfect for brunch.

Table of Contents

• ❤️ Why you'll love it
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥄 Equipment
• 🥫 Storage
• 📖 Variations
• 💭 Things to know
• 👩‍🍳 FAQs
• 📚 Related recipes
• 📞 The last word
• 📖 Recipe
• Summer Memories Circa 1968
• There's Education and Then There's Education
• 💬 Comments

❤️ Why you'll love it

Easy cream cheese coffee cake recipe is stuffed full of rich cream cheese and tangy-sweet ripe summer berries, then topped with a crunchy cornbread streusel that will have you going back for more.

Cornbread has a naturally nutty flavor and when it's combined with butter and sugar in the crumb topping you almost taste vanilla flavors.

Plus it retains its shape and texture when it's mixed with sugar, flour, and butter so the crumb topping on this particular cream cheese coffee cake is easily the best that I have ever made.

Each luscious bite is redolent of languid summer days that stretched on endlessly, snaking their way through Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day - so far in the distance that it was almost unimaginable.

I'd give a lot for another summer like that! Here's a taste of the south in summer - all in one delightful mouthful.

🧾 Ingredients

This is an overview of the ingredients. You'll find the full measurements and instructions in the green recipe card (printable) at the bottom of the page.

The following are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

• all purpose flour
• baking powder
• baking soda
• butter
• sugar
• eggs
• vanilla
• almond extract
• sour cream
• cream cheese
• raspberries
• blueberries
• cornbread crumbs

🔪 Instructions

This is an overview of the instructions. Full instructions are in the green recipe card at the bottom of the page.

1. Make the cake batter as directed in the recipe card below. Pour into the baking dish.
2. Spread the cream cheese filling over the top.
3. Sprinkle with fruit.
4. Cover with streusel and bake.

🥄 Equipment

The following are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

You'll need the following items to make this recipe successfully.

Y'all know I am partial to Pyrex baking pans. I like glass because I think it heats more evenly and I like how it feels. Don't even ask me why - I just do. If you find that you need a pan to make this cake I'd suggest this 13x9-inch Pyrex glass pan.

🥫 Storage

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

📖 Variations

• Use your favorite fresh summer fruits.
• Add a little vanilla to the cream cheese filling.
• Use a regular streusel like the one found in this Dutch Apple Pie.

💭 Things to know

Expert Tip: If you don't have leftover cornbread you can use crushed cornflakes, dry breadcrumbs, or even old cake or cookie crumbs as a substitute.

• This makes a large cake. It could easily be cut smaller and feed 16 or more people.
• Although cream cheese coffee cake does keep well for up to a week you'll want to keep leftovers tightly covered in the refrigerator after a couple of days because it contains so much dairy and fresh fruit.
• Use regular, full fat cream cheese. Don't use low fat, whipped, fat free, or any combination. It just won't work - trust me.
• Don't use mushy or bruised fruit. It will make the whole thing soggy.
• This won't freeze well. You can click on the number of servings in the recipe below and adjust servings either up or down. All of the ingredient amounts will adjust right along with the serving sizes.
• The cake is not super sweet. It's got more of a firm biscuit-like texture and buttery flavor than something like a yellow cake.

👩‍🍳 FAQs

📚 Related recipes

I love brunch! Breakfast is my favorite meal to eat at a restaurant and a huge, pastry filled brunch is my happy place.

• Buttermilk pancakes stacked sky high, light and fluffy - preferably full of blueberries! This has been my go to recipe forever. You'll love it.
• Blue Cornmeal Waffles are thick with deep pockets to hold your favorite syrup. Blue cornmeal is a little sweeter than regular cornmeal - and it's so pretty.
• Tex-Mex Eggs Benedict is perfect if you're looking for a savory component. It's not your mama's recipe, for sure!
• Fruit Kolache is absolutely delicious but so is the cream cheese kolache! I can never decide between them.
• Cream cheese crowns are like cinnamon rolls with cream cheese stuffing. Hard to explain - easy to eat.

Here are more summer breakfast ideas.

📞 The last word

Oh my gosh, y'all. This is the stuff, right here. This is why God made summer and summer berries without a doubt.

I used blueberries and raspberries in my cream cheese coffee cake creation but strawberries, peaches, mango, cherries.... any ripe summer fruit would work as well.

You might need to adjust the sweetness depending on how tart or sweet the fruit is - other than that the flavors are going to work perfectly with about any fruit you can pick up at your local farm stand.

Well maybe not tomatoes? AND definitely not cucumber.

Although I 've been making this recipe for years I hadn't made it in a very, VERY long time.

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need. Don't forget that you can click on "add to collection" to save it to your own, private recipe box!

If you love this recipe please give it 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 Recipe

Summer Memories Circa 1968

There was something about waking up on that first morning of no-school-for-three-months-and-dang-what-am-I-going-to-do. I've always been a morning person and so summer days were not much different for me. I got up as soon as the chatter of the waking birds permeated my dreams and drew me back from where ever my imagination had wandered during the night. As soon as my eyes squinted open my bare feet would hit the coolness of the smooth wood floor and I'd jump into the least amount of clothing required by my mother, ready to head out for adventure.

Back then we had a freedom that has dwindled with each generation. My mother often talked sadly of how much more free she had been as a child than my generation was and I look at my grandchildren and sigh that they don't know the bliss of long, uninterrupted hours tramping through the woods, free from adult supervision and social requirements. I knew where the biggest, fattest dewberries grew without needing Google Maps to find them. I knew exactly which tree bent close enough to the ground to allow me to climb high into the branches and eat tooth-shatteringly crunchy, not-quite-ripe pears.

There's Education and Then There's Education

The education that I received during the summer months was maybe even a little more valuable to me as I reached adulthood than the long months of studying in a classroom the rest of the year. Somehow that freedom allowed me to retain some of the magic of childhood -- the belief that anything can happen and that the next moment in time could be life changing.

And all of those memories and magic are infused in this cream cheese coffee cake recipe. I'm not sure how but it's there. The sunny scent of a warm day, the simplicity of walking through the woods, the bright flavor of a sun-warmed berry popped into your mouth... it's all there for you to experience bite by bite by glorious bite.

What’s new? Check out my Restless Chipotle & Co. Store on Amazon where you'll find all kinds of nostalgic goodness!  Thanks so much for being a part of Restless Chipotle!

First published June 17, 2017. Last updated April 28, 2022.