coffee buttercream

These coffee rolls are a soft coffee flavored roll with a buttery, brown sugar, coffee powder and cinnamon filling, and topped with a perfect coffee buttercream frosting.

Coffee Rolls

water (warm)

sugar

tbsp yeast (I use active dry yeast)

eggs (room temp)

butter

espresso powder

flour

salt

brown sugar

cinnamon

vanilla

cream

yeast

Pour warm water, sugar and yeast into a large mixing bowl, stir together with a wooden spoon or dough whisk and let sit 10-15 minutes or until yeast is bubbly. You want the water to be about 100-110 degrees, not too hot or it will kill the yeast.

Add butter and eggs and mix together again.

Add salt, espresso powder and 2 cups of flour and mix. Continue adding flour in ½ cup increments until dough forms a ball and pulls away from sides of the bowl.

knead

Pour dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 3- 5 minutes, incorporating more flour if needed. Dough should not be sticky, but more of a soft and tacky feel.

rise

Place dough in greased bowl, cover with a cloth and let rise until it&#39;s doubled in size, about 1½ hours.

roll

Punch dough down and roll onto a floured surface. I try for a rectangle thats about 14x18.

Spread the room temperature butter into a thin and even layer, leaving about 1/2 inch on the bottom of the dough untouched so it can hold together.

coffee filling

In a small bowl mix together brown sugar, espresso powder and cinnamon. Sprinkle the mixture evenly across the butter layer, and smooth it out being careful not to tear the dough.

Working from the long 18 inch end of the dough, tightly roll it up into a log. Place your hands at each end of the side and give it a gentle squeeze to help compact the dough. It may have stretched out a bit during the rolling process so this brings it back together. 

Cut the dough into 12 rolls total. I like to make little markings first to help make sure they are all about the same size.

Place the rolls in a greased 9×13 pan (you could also use two 9″ round pans, placing 6 rolls in each). It’s OK if all of the rolls are touching. *If wanting to bake the following day read notes down below for instructions.

Place in a warm spot, cover and let rise again until doubled in size. This takes about 45-60 minutes depending on how warm it is. You can always put them in your oven with the light on to help with warmth, but make sure you take them out to preheat your oven.

oven

bake

Bake for 14-18 minutes or until the tops are a light golden brown. While they cool, make the frosting.

Mix all frosting ingredients together until smooth and creamy. You might need to add a little bit more powdered sugar or cream to get your desired consistency.

frost

Let rolls cool a bit before frosting or it will melt.

To make the frosting:

Delicious Coffee Layer Cake with soft coffee flavored cake layers, and a creamy, fluffy coffee buttercream! Perfectly sweet Coffee Cake for all coffee lovers! EASY / INTERMEDIATE - This recipe has two components (cake and frosting). The cake recipe itself is easy. Frosting the cake is also easy, if you adopt a rustic look for your cake. Smoother frosting and piped decorations will bump up the recipe to intermediate level, since this will require some experience to get it right. US based cup, teaspoon, tablespoon measurements. Common Measurement Conversions. Weight measurements are recommended for accurate results. See my cake pan conversion chart to adjust the recipe to the type of cake pans you have, if needed.

Coffee Layer Cake

unsalted butter

300 g white sugar (1 ½ cups)

eggs (at room temperature)

milk

coffee

tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp baking powder

unsalted butter (4 sticks (cool but not cold; about 70°F))

½ tsp salt (or ¾ tsp)

whipping cream (⅓ cup)

tbsp vanilla extract

Chocolate fudge sauce

coffee beans

Chocolate sprinkles

Speculoos cookies (crushed)

For best results, make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom of two 8 inch pans with parchment paper, and butter and flour the sides. Set aside.

Cream the softened butter until the mix is creamy and fluffy. This can take about 5 - 10 minutes with a stand mixer, depending on how soft the butter is.

Add the sugar and salt, and cream the butter and sugar further until the mixture is creamy and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

Dissolve the instant coffee granules in the milk, and stir in the vanilla. Set it aside until needed.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together and whisk to combine.

Fold the dry ingredients into the cake batter in 3 - 4 additions, while alternating with the coffee-milk mixture. The dry ingredients should be added first and last. Fold in the dry ingredients until just combined.

Divide the batter into the two prepared cake pans. You can either weigh the batter and divide it equally by weight, OR use an ice cream scoop to evenly portion the batter into the cake pans. Spread the batter evenly in the pan using a small offset spatula or small rubber spatula.

Knock the cake pans on your kitchen counter 3 - 4 times to flatten the batter and to remove any large gas pockets.

Bake the cakes in the preheated oven for about 25 - 30 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through the baking time.

The cake should be springy to the touch when done (when you gently poke the middle of the cake, it should spring back up). Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool slightly in the pan. While still warm, turn the cake out onto a wire rack and let it cool down completely.

If you’re assembling the cake the following day, wrap the cooled cake layers in plastic wrap and leave them in the fridge or at room temperature.

Coffee Cake layers

Place the butter in the bowl of your stand mixer. With a whisk attachment, whip the butter until creamy and white in color - about 3 to 7 minutes on high speed (not maximum speed). Take as long as you need to make the butter very creamy.

Dissolve the instant coffee in 1 - 2 tbsp of water and stir it into the cream.

Add the salt, coffee cream, and vanilla into the butter, and whisk further until the butter-cream mix is light and fluffy (for a few minutes).

Lower the speed and add 500 g (4 cups) of the confectioner’s sugar – a little at a time, and incorporate the confectioner&#39;s sugar into the butter. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl as you go.

Once the sugar is incorporated into the butter, increase the speed, and whisk on high for 1 - 3 minutes. Taste and add the rest of the confectioner’s sugar if you want a sweeter buttercream. Whisk for a further 2 – 3 minutes until you have a light, fluffy, soft, spreadable frosting.

If the frosting is too stiff, you can add extra cream (1 tbsp at a time) to get an even softer buttercream. If you want the buttercream to have a stronger coffee flavor, you can also dissolve any extra coffee granules into 1 tbsp of water and whisk in that as well.

Coffee buttercream

Level the top of the cake layers (if they are domed).

Place one cake layer on a cake serving plate or decorating plate. Make sure the bottom of the cake is facing down.

Place about ¾ cup of the frosting on top of this cake layer and spread it evenly. You can add more or less of the frosting as you like.

Now place the second cake layer on top. Make sure the bottom of the cake is facing up this time, so that you have a level surface on top to frost. Gently press the cake down to make sure the cake layer sticks to the buttercream below.

Apply a thin coating of the frosting to completely cover the cake. This is the crumb coating. The crumb coating will help make the sides and top of the cake even, and make it easier to frost the final layer of buttercream.

Allow the crumb coating to set in the fridge (or a cool place in your kitchen) for a few minutes.

Evenly spread the rest of the frosting over the cake. Use an offset spatula to create swirls for an old fashioned cake look, OR use a bench scraper or spatula to smooth out the frosting.

Assembling the cake

Decorate the cake however you like. Here, I applied one strip of soft chocolate fudge sauce inside a pastry bag, and then filled the pastry bag with the coffee buttercream. This creates a chocolate marble effect in the buttercream when piped (as you can see in the pictures).

Alternatively, you can pipe a plain buttercream border, or use the sprinkles or crushed cookies to decorate the cake.

Decoration

This makes the most perfect cake! Really well risen layers

This is the best coffee cake I’ve ever had !!!  The frosting is a creamy balance of coffee, sweetness and saltiness!! I decorated the cake with some caramelized nuts to bring a little crunch. Everyone loved it !!! Thank you..

Great recipe, awesome cake! I halved the buttercream and made a white chocolate coffee ganache to layer between the cakes. 

Turned out spectacular!

Try it!  I made this today,  by the recipe despite temptation to make changes,  and it was great! Everyone loved it, even my non-cake eating kid. 
Due to time and kitchen sharing issues, we didn't do the fudge sauce.  It wasn't missed on this delicious and beautifully textured cake, but I can see how it would be a welcome addition.

Hello! I've made this recipe many times and it's so good, can we substitute the milk to buttermilk?

I don’t normally leave reviews but you need to know how good this cake is. I made it for our adult daughter’s birthday, she loves coffee. The cake was tender and so flavorful. The icing was creamy and delicious. And thank you for making it a two layer cake! I don’t like to make anything over two layers. I will definitely be making this cake again.

I showed my teenage daughter this recipe, and she also felt this would be satisfying as her Bday cake. The batter was very smooth and fluffy, and it came out dense but moist. Loved it! I think this will be my go-to cake base, and infuse different flavors into it. I used a different icing recipe and it all tied together perfectly.

Wow. Made this double pan cake today then decorated rustic style with chocolate drizzled over outer. Absolutely glorious cake and so professional looking.  I didn’t like coffee cake nor buttercream icing until today when that changed forever.  Beautiful consistency and everyone whose tried so far has raved about the taste.  Thanks so much to the chef who volunteered this stunning recipe . Kim from NZ

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Top 2 coffee buttercream recipes from across the web

The most viewed coffee buttercream recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

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Coffee Rolls

Coffee Layer Cake

The most viewed coffee buttercream recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine