Classic Cinnamon Coffee Cake (Paleo, GF, Low Sugar)

This classic cinnamon coffee cake is completely paleo, gluten free, and nut free! It’s a healthy twist that tastes just like the traditional cinnamon coffee cake!

I absolutely love a good cinnamon coffee cake, and this one in particular…

Let me just say, you won’t be able to stop at one.

I’m sorry, but it’s true!

From the actual cake to It’s completely paleo, gluten free, dairy free, and nut free for my nut-allergy friends! However, the taste is just absolutely delicious and decadent.

Perfect with a cup of coffee (because ya know, there’s no coffee in coffee cake! I wish though ha! Maybe I should make one… 😉 ).

Origins of the paleo cinnamon coffee cake:

I actually used to be a huge fan of the cinnamon coffee cake at Starbucks as a little kid. I would ask for a slice of that with my kid’s “coffee” (a.k.a. I would ask for coffee and my mom would order me a kid’s hot chocolate and tell me it was coffee… I thought I was very adult, but now that I am an adult, I just want to go back to the hot chocolate days hahaha! I kid, I kid…sorta 😉 ).

While my tastebuds have matured to like a little less BAM with the sweetness, I do enjoy a really good sweet treat every now and again!

And who doesn’t love a good coffee cake?!

So this take on an old fashioned coffee cake is actually a paleo cinnamon coffee cake, so that means that it’s completely gluten free, dairy free, and refined sugar free. BUT me being me, I want to make sure it’s still a viable option for more people.

Since many paleo options tend to be heavy on the nuts, I went for a completely nut free. Instead, I use a lot of coconut and…SWEET POTATO!

It adds an insane amount of sweetness without any added sugar, which means saving a lot of that high quality maple syrup for more important things…like pancakes!

Gluten free cinnamon coffee cake is typically made with a whole mix of different flours and gums to try and resemble its gluten sibling…

…and Paleo cinnamon coffee cake is usually full of nut flours, which yes, I do love almond flour, but that’s a lot of nuts to go through!

That’s why I just love using sweet potato as the base. It just keeps things simple!

When you pair it with an agent like baking powder, it rises just like normal bread! That’s usually the trick for getting any paleo bread recipe to rise without yeast (since yeast actually needs gluten in order to get that airy like texture!).

I will say, the sweet potato adds a really nice flavor to this paleo cinnamon coffee cake, and it’s complemented well with coconut for flavor and added sweetness without adding a bunch of sugar!

By now I bet you’re wondering what’s in this beautiful paleo cinnamon coffee cake! Let’s find out (yes, I sound like the owl from the tootsy roll pop commercial)!

Paleo Cinnamon Coffee Cake Ingredients:

This coffee cake is broken down into two layers: the actual cake and the cinnamon streusel!

For the cake part, you’ll need

• Japanese sweet potato: a given! This will be the base of your cinnamon coffee cake.
• Coconut flour: for this recipe, we’re actually going to use a decent amount: about a cup for the actual batter because there’s a lot of moisture going on in this cake!
• Coconut milk: to get a less coconut flavor, you can absolutely use light coconut milk, and you can definitely sub in a nut milk if you aren’t nut free.
• Coconut oil
• Eggs: you can also sub in flax eggs here if you’re vegan!
• Maple syrup: just a touch 😉
• Cinnamon: but of course, the star of the cinnamon coffee cake show! Cinnamon is also a great sweetener too!

Now for the cinnamon streusel layer, you’ll need:

• Coconut flour: this helps with clumping
• Coconut sugar: or maple syrup
• Cinnamon
• Coconut oil

How to make a grain free cinnamon coffee cake:

Now the best part of this recipe is that we get to use our handy dandy food processor!

That’s right! Little work is required for this gluten free cinnamon coffee cake! The only real hand mixing you’ll do will be for the cinnamon streusel after you whip up the batter.

Then it’s all about layering the batter in the cake pan! I split half the cake batter for the first layer, topped with some cinnamon streusel, and then continued that pattern for the second layer.

Pretty easy, right?

Making the cinnamon streusel

Now the original recipe I first shared called for maple syrup, which you can still use, but I do actually really like the coconut sugar here!

It adds a really nice clumpy texture that you get with more traditional streusels.

Simply mix all of your ingredients in one bowl and that’s it!

For the streusel, depending on how big your streusel clumps are, you might need to make extra! If you do need to, no worries at all. It’s a really easy streusel that you can whip up in a nano second!

The coffee cake layers

Now, an old fashioned coffee cake is traditionally cut into squares, so that’s what I decided to go with here, but I’ve also made this Paleo cinnamon coffee cake with a bundt pan!

Works great both ways 🙂

Start with a layer of the sweet potato cake, then sprinkle on half of the coconut sugar cinnamon streusel.

Add the second half to the sweet potato cake, then finish off with the last of the streusel.

Now just bake and slice into squares!

I’m actually shocked at how well this resembles an old fashioned coffee cake. It tastes just like the standard flour and milk and eggs and sugar version to me!

Especially the streusel; like WOW is that out of this world!

This paleo cinnamon coffee cake also comes together in record time. I had it all done within 45 minutes! Depending on your oven, yours may need to cook longer but it should still be really quick.

I hope you love this recipe as much as I do! Enjoy and I cannot wait to see what you think!

If you give it a go, let me know in the comments below (too much rhyming, but I also don’t hate it haha!). As always, I can’t wait to see your beautiful creations on Pinterest and Instagram!

Happy baking and cinnamon streusel-ing!

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