This Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffeecake will be a hit with your holiday guests this year just as much as it will please the regulars around your coffee table. With flavors of raspberries, orange, and luscious cream cheese, it’s a delicious way to start the day!
This coffeecake is the work of much love and affection. Love and affection for a good morning breakfast, that is. I admit, it was driven by selfish motives. I really love cheese danishes, so I wanted to see if I could recreate those flavors in a easy-to-bake coffeecake.
I think we succeeded, folks!
At let me tell you, we had a fun time testing. I teased you all with instagram images of it in its original form and in its final form, so today, I’m breaking with the full story and recipe. I tested this recipe over the course of six weeks, making it six times in different configurations.
I’d dreamt of a coffeecake with patches of cheesecake interspersed with cake and berries. The first few batches I baked in a round springform pan. I loved the look of it; a springform pan is so much prettier than a 9×13. But, getting the baking time correct was a little trickier. The cheesecake filling would be perfect, but the cake pretty crispy. The cake could be light and delicate, but the cheesecake underbaked.
Baking it in a 9×13? Instant perfection. So, we all just need to invest in really pretty 9×13 pans so that this looks as pretty as it is delicious.
The cake is a basic coffeecake flavored with citrus zest. It’s prepped in a way that you make a streusel topping at the same time as the cake mixture. Then you’ll drizzle on a cheesecake type layer. It doesn’t need to cover it perfectly. You’re going for peaks and valleys. Toss on some berries. Then sprinkle on the crumb topping. Bake and be happy!
We tested frozen blueberries, chocolate chips, and fresh raspberries. All were delicious raspberries were the clear winner.
I found that you need to adjust the baking time if you use frozen berries. Currently fresh raspberries are a great deal around here ($1.88 at Sprouts this week), so I’m going that route. Seriously, after all the experimenting the kids were WOWED when I used raspberries. Let me know which toppings you experiment with!
I played around with the citrus zest. I think you’ve got leeway here, so feel free to play around with different combinations. Chocolate and orange; blueberry and lemon; raspberry goes great with either but I landed on orange. I have a feeling that this recipe will lend itself to much experimentation among you, so I can’t wait to hear about your adaptations.
I also messed around with different means of mixing the cake and cheesecake batters. I wanted this to be simple without a lot of clean-up. Since there are technically four layers, that presents a challenge. You can mix it by hand with a whisk, but I found that the electric mixer or food processor got better texture than mixed by hand.
Since I don’t like to mess with a pastry blender, but use a food processor for all my cutting in, I think that’s the easiest, most straightforward way to mix this up. No need to wash the bowl in between batters. Just move from one step to the next. (You can use a mixer as well. Just read my notes in the recipe below.)
- dry mix
- remove streusel
- add leavening and liquids
- pour into cake pan/scrape bowl
- mix cheesecake filling
- pour in strips over cake batter
- sprinkle on berries
- sprinkle on streusel
- bake
This sounds like it’s complex, but really it’s not. I’ll have to see if I can get the hubs to video the process for me so you can see how easy it really is. Trust me, I’ve made this six times. 😉
This is a must-make for holiday brunches, lazy weekends, and after school pick-me-ups. Seriously, my kids inhale a full pan in about fifteen minutes. So easy, and so good! You’ll love serving this coffeecake this holiday season. I promise!
Tools I use for this recipe:
- food processor (or you could use a mixing bowl/pastry blender/electric mixer combination)
- rubber spatula
- 9×13 inch pan with lid
Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffeecake
Ingredients
- 2 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar divided usage
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 egg divided usage
- 1 tsp orange zest
- 1 8-ounce package cream cheese softened, neufchatel cheese is fine, too.
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 6-ounce package raspberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 9x13-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, combine the flour, 3/4 cup sugar, and the butter. Pulse until coarse crumbs are formed. Remove 1/2 cup of the crumb mixture from the bowl and set aside. Alternatively, you can do this without a food processor. Add the ingredients to a mixing bowl and cut the butter into the flour and sugar with a pastry blender.
- Add to the mixture in the food processor: the baking powder, baking soda, salt, milk, 1 egg, and the orange zest. Pulse until a smooth batter is formed. If you’re not using a food processor, use a hand mixer to combine the wet and dry ingredients until well combined.
- Spread this batter along the bottom of the prepared pan.
- Add the cream cheese and remaining 1/2 cup sugar to the empty processor bowl. No need to wash it. Blend until smooth. Add the remaining egg and the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides and blend until smooth. Pour this mixture over the cake batter in ribbons, allowing spaces for cake batter to show.
- Sprinkle the berries over the batter. Sprinkle the streusel over the berries.
- Bake the coffeecake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the cheesecake areas are set and a tester inserted into a cake area has a few crumbs attached. Cool on a rack. Can be refrigerated for more cheesecake-like texture.
Theresa
I’m trying this tonight! With blackberries we just picked.
Jessica Fisher
How did you like it?
Cheri A
Do you think this could be made ahead and frozen?
AmyG
My daughter and I made this tonight for dessert and it was absolutely wonderful! I can’t even tell you how much we enjoyed it. I thought it would be good, but it was amazing, the layers of cake, cheesecake and streusel were wonderfully complimented by the fresh raspberries. We made half the recipe, which was enough for my husband and I, our daughter and and her boyfriend. I have 2 small portions left for breakfast in the morning, although my daughter’s sweet boyfriend would have gladly eaten that given the chance, but he had eaten a fourth of the cake already after downing six sweet pork tacos for dinner :)! I baked the half recipe in a deep glass pie plate (I weighed my beaten egg and added half to the cake batter and half to the cream cheese portion) and it took about 28 minutes, I wasn’t sure if the middle would be done, but it set up beautifully. I can’t wait to be invited to brunch because this will make a new and different treat to take. Thank for for posting this and know that my daughter’s boyfriend, who was raised in France, was impressed by the recipe.
Mary
I just made this using frozen (picked from fresh this summer) raspberries. In my oven it was 35 min to cook.
I also didn’t have any oranges to zest, so subbed orange juice. It doesn’t have as orangey a flavor but it is still there.
It was SO good and super easy and fast to put together. The only problems are the smell about killed me as I was waiting for it to cool enough to slice, and I might eat the whole pan before the kids get home. 😉
Jessica Fisher
YAY! Thanks for giving a second opinion on the baking time! Glad you enjoyed it!
Diana
My son has requested “raspberry cake” for his birthday in January. Wonder if this would satisfy him?! 🙂
I’m leery of being able to find good quality fresh raspberries in January, though. Do you think frozen raspberries would keep some of the wow factor, based on your other tests?
Diana
He says this will work–hurrah! I was wondering how to fulfill a request for “raspberry cake” without turning to raspberry jello, which I would prefer not to do 🙂 Can’t wait to give it a try–so glad you posted it!
Melanie A.
I cannot wait to try this, it looks amazing! Thank you!
Joshua Hampton
This coffeecake sure looks festive. I’d love to try this with blueberries, as blueberries are a family favorite.
Kelly
I can’t wait to try this! You mentioned that frozen raspberries caused the baking time to increase, so I assume you used them frozen. Did the juice from the frozen berries change the texture?
I have a recipe for cranberry orange bread that we love, and I’m thinking I could incorporate those flavors into this, mmm, glad I have 3 pounds of cream cheese to use!
Jessica
I tested it many times with frozen blueberries. I left them frozen. Baking time could increase 10 to 15 minutes for some reason. Once I discovered that the fresh raspberries had a wow factor, I didn’t go back to frozen.