How to Add Fruit Fillings to Your Favorite Crumb and Coffeecakes Recipes

A buckle is a cake that buckles and falls. The topping, often a caramel topping, sinks into the batter creating ripples of caramel.
You can make a buckle with our Caramel Swirl Crumb Cake Mix. You can add blueberries or other fruits to make a blueberry buckle or another buckle using another fruit. See this article for instructions for buckles using our cake mix.
This article gives you directions for creating “near buckles” with fruit fillings using most crumb and coffeecake recipes. We demonstrate how to modify a recipe by showing a recipe that we used and the modifications that we made to create a near buckle. (A near buckle looks like a buckle but instead of the cake buckling as it bakes, you create an uneven surface with the placement of the batter.)
You’ll also see a terrific recipe for a Raspberry Coffeecake with a Raspberry White Chocolate Frosting.
Here’s how you can create ribbons of fruit or fruit filling in most of your crumb and coffeecake recipes. You’ll make gorgeous desserts, lush with fruit, and beautiful.
Place half to two-thirds of the batter in the prepared pan reserving the rest.
Spread the fruit filling, fresh fruit, or frozen fruit on the batter in the pan.
Place the remaining batter over the fruit in dollops. It doesn’t have to be smooth, in fact, it’s better to have voids in the dollops.
Bake according to directions. (The addition of filling, especially if it is cold or frozen, may extend the baking time as much as eight to ten minutes depending on the recipe.)
Original Recipe: Dutch Sour Cream Coffeecake
Dutch Sour Cream Coffeecake
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sour cream
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Streusel
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
6 tablespoons cold butter cut into small pieces
Directions
Prepare an 8 1/2 by 13-inch baking pan by greasing well or lining with parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Beat the eggs with an electric mixer until frothy.
Add the sugar, melted butter, and vanilla and continue beating until smooth and light. Beat in the sour cream.
In another bowl, mix the flour, leavenings, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the creamed ingredients and mix with a spatula until combined. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.
Mix the streusel ingredients in a bowl.
Use a pastry knife to cut the butter into the mixture until it becomes coarse and granular. Spoon the streusel over the cake.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the cake tests done.
Fruited Recipe: Cherry Amaretto Cream Coffeecake
There are three stars to this recipe: Cherry filling, amaretto flavor, and lots of sour cream. The first recipe is great; this one is even better. We served it in the store and people were immediate asking for the recipe.
We really didn’t have to change much: the addition of cherry pastry filling and replacing the vanilla in the cake with amaretto flavor. The amaretto gives it a very distinctive taste, almost a cross between cherry and almond. It might be good without the amaretto but the amaretto makes it great.
Sour cream always makes cakes moist and with a heavier crumb. Because there is little baking soda to neutralize the acid in the sour cream, the sour cream flavor survives the high heat of baking.
Coffeecake
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups sour cream
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
about two cups pastry filling
Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Streusel
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
6 tablespoons cold butter cut into small pieces
Directions
Prepare an 8 1/2 by 13-inch baking pan by greasing well. We lined the pan with parchment paper so that we could lift the cake from the pan after five minutes to a wire rack. After it had cooled for another ten minutes, we trimmed the crusty edges from the cake and cut it into measured squares with a ruler and serrated knife.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Beat the eggs with an electric mixer until frothy. Add the sugar, melted butter, and vanilla and continue beating until smooth and light. Beat in the sour cream.
In another bowl, mix the flour, leavenings, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the creamed ingredients and mix with a spatula until combined. Spread half to two-thirds of the batter into the prepared pan, reserving the rest.
Spread the pastry filling over the dough. It does not need to be spread evenly.
Spoon the remaining batter over the filling in dollops allowing voids between the dollops to remain.
Mix the streusel ingredients in a bowl. Use a pastry knife to cut the butter into the mixture until it becomes coarse and granular.
Spoon the streusel over the cake. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the cake tests done.
Raspberry Coffeecake with Raspberry White Chocolate Frosting
We debated whether to call this a coffeecake or a dessert. It started out as a coffeecake but with the filling and the frosting, it’s sweet for coffeecake. (The cake portion is not overly sweet.) When we gave it to customers in our store, it was very well received.
This has a raspberry filling between two layers of coffeecake. It’s drizzled with a frosting made with white chocolate.
We made this in a springform pan for a beautiful presentation and easy serving and slicing. You can cut right on the tempered glass bottom. It takes a tight seal to make a cake in springform pan. We recommend our Candy Apple Red Silicone Springform Pan.
While we used a raspberry pastry filling in this recipe, you may use whatever pastry filling that you prefer.
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk (or use 1/4 cup buttermilk powder and 3/4 cup water)
1 large egg, whisked
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 to 2 cups raspberry pastry filling
For the frosting
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup white chocolate chips or 1/2 cup white chocolate wafers
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon raspberry flavor
1-2 tablespoons milk
Directions
Use a nine or ten-inch glass-based springform pan for this recipe. Because the batter is deeper with a nine-inch pan, it may take several minutes longer to bake.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the flour and brown sugar together. With a pastry knife, cut in the butter until the mixture is granular in appearance. Measure and set aside 3/4 cup of the crumb mixture.
Stir the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt into the remaining crumb mixture. Form a well in the center of this dry mixture. Add the buttermilk to the egg and add the flavor. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the well in the dry mixture. Stir with a fork until combined. Do not over mix. Some lumps will remain. Set aside about one cup of this batter.
Place the batter (not the cup set aside) in the prepared pan. Spread it evenly across the bottom. Spread the pastry filling over the batter—it should be 1/4 to 3/8-inches deep. Spoon the set aside batter on the pastry filling in dollops—it will not cover the filling but will spread while baking leaving little dales between the dollops. Sprinkle the remaining 3/4 cup crumb mixture over the batter. (You will have four layers: batter on the bottom, then fruit filling, then batter, and finally the crumb topping.)
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until golden and the cake portion tests done with a toothpick. Baking times will vary with different pans. Let the cake cool for ten minutes in the pan on the rack. If you are using a springform pan, loosen the edges and remove the ring after ten minutes.
To make the frosting, melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave, stirring several times. Be careful not to overheat the chocolate. Add the confectioners’ sugar and flavor. Add enough milk to make the frosting of drizzling consistency. Drizzle over the warm coffeecake.