If you find yourself with leftover cranberry sauce, turn in into the most delicious dessert with this Cranberry Sauce Coffee Cake recipe!
So fun fact, every year when the holiday season rolls around (especially Thanksgiving and Christmas) I make an obscene amount of cranberry sauce.
Granted, I do enjoy the blasphemous can-o-cranberry that comes in that wiggling gelatinous form. I mean, it haunts me but I love it!
Anyways, I’ll chill a can of shame for leftover Thanksgiving sandwiches and then make the most giant pot of homemade cranberry sauce, doubling either my crockpot cranberry sauce or a stovetop version of my apple cranberry sauce.
I do this exclusively for the leftover sauce.
It makes the most amazing addition to so many of my holiday recipes from my Cranberry Goat Cheese Log to the most addictive Cranberry Pecan Grilled Cheese.
This time around I incorporated it into a fluffy coffee cake and the result completely rocked my world. It’s SO GOOD! So good, in fact, that I couldn’t stop eating the test batches and had to beg my friends to save me from myself and take some of the cake.
Now all three of us are hopelessly obsessed with this coffee cake!
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
It’s simply glorious! In case you don’t actually have leftover cranberry sauce to play with, no worries! You can use either of the recipes I linked above or try this super and speedy stovetop cranberry sauce I whipped up for one of the test batches.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (200 g) sugar
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 1/2 cup water
- 12 oz fresh cranberries
- 1/4-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, or to taste
- orange zest (optional) to taste
Instructions
- Bring sugar, orange juice, and water to a boil in a small saucepan.
- Mix well and add cranberries.
- Once they return to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until most of the cranberries have burst, approx 10 min.
- Mash with a fork, potato masher, or follow my lead and use an immersion blender (or any blender/processor really) to blend the sauce until smooth. Season with cinnamon and optional orange zest to taste.
The coffee cake itself is super easy to make and uses simple ingredients you probably already have on hand!
Coffee Cake Ingredients Needed
- egg
- avocado oil (or vegetable oil)
- sour cream
- milk
- vanilla extract
- all purpose flour
- sugar
- baking powder
- cinnamon
- salt
- cranberry sauce (see recipe above if needed)
Streusel Ingredients
For the cinnamon sugar streusel you’ll need flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt, butter, and cinnamon.
Ready to get baking? Let’s do this! The recipe card below has a handy print button.
Leftover Cranberry Sauce Coffee Cake
This recipe uses a metal square 8×8 baking pan and yields 9 squares of fluffy cranberry coffee cake. You are welcome to cut the pieces smaller if you’d like, but I like to curl up with a nice big slice and a piping hot cup of coffee. SO GOOD!
Leftover cranberry coffee cake is fantastic and can be stored in an airtight container at room temp for 2 days. Enjoy!
Leftover Cranberry Sauce Coffee Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 large egg (whisked)
- ½ cup avocado oil or vegetable oil
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 TBSP milk
- ½ TBSP vanilla extract (1.5 tsp)
- 1.5 cups all purpose flour (180 grams)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- ½ TBSP baking powder (1.5 tsp)
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup leftover cranberry sauce
CINNAMON SUGAR STREUSEL
- ¾ cup plus 2 TBSP all purpose flour
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 TBSP granulated sugar
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 3 TBSP butter (melted and cooled)
- 2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Measure out all ingredients and set out milk, sour cream, egg, and leftover cranberry sauce to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Line an 8×8 metal baking pan with parchment paper.
- First make the streusel. In a medium-small bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Drizzle melted and cooled (but still warm) butter over the mixture and use a fork to gently toss the ingredients together until combined, no longer dry, but still clumpy. Don’t over-mix or the streusel will turn into a paste (a tasty paste but still a paste not a crumble, lol) Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, add flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Whisk well with a metal whisk (or fork) to combine. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, oil, sour cream, milk and vanilla. Mix well using a metal whisk or electric beater.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
- Spread the batter into parchment lined baking pan. Dollop with spaced spoonfuls of cranberry sauce then spread into one even layer. It's okay if a little mixes with the batter.
- Sprinkle streusel mixture over the top.
- Bake for 30–33 minutes. Slice and enjoy slightly warm or cooled!
Notes
Nutrition
If you get a chance to try this cranberry sauce coffee cake recipe, let me know!
Leave some love in the comment form below or tag your photos with @peasandcrayons on Instagram so I can happy dance over your creation. I can’t wait to see what you whip up!
Looking for More Leftover Cranberry Sauce Recipes?
- Cranberry Brie Phyllo Cups
- Cranberry Cheesecake Streusel Bars
- Holiday Cranberry Dip
- Cinnamon Walnut Cranberry Cream Cheese Spread
Also, if you have extra fresh cranberries handy you’ve GOT to try my Honey Roasted Butternut Squash with Cranberries and Feta — with over 60+ rave reviews, it’s always a hit this time of year!
I made this tonight for a post-Thanksgiving family party and everyone loved it. 😊 I might try adding lemon zest to the batter next time though. I think that would take it to the next level.
Lemon zest is brilliant! I usually throw a bunch of fresh orange juice and zest into my cranberry sauce for that same reason – love it!
The best coffee cake recipe I’ve tried!
Ahh yay! So happy you enjoyed it!