Why This Recipe Works

We wanted a Pecan Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe that was light, moist, and deeply flavored with pecans and warm spices. Beating very soft butter and eggs into the dry ingredients, before the wet ingredients are incorporated, makes the cake tender and moist—never dense. Toasting the pecans in a skillet intensified their flavor, while maple syrup both boosted the nuts’ flavor and kept the Pecan Sour Cream Coffee Cake moist.

Before You Begin

Very soft butter can be incorporated into the cake easily, whereas cold or even cool butter will form unblended nuggets in the batter. You can toast, cool, and grind the nuts for both the streusel and cake together. See related recipes for other glaze suggestions.

Instructions

For the streusel: Combine pecans, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in small bowl and set aside.

For the cake: Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 12-cup nonstick Bundt pan with 1 tablespoon softened butter. Whisk eggs, sour cream, maple syrup, and vanilla together in medium bowl.

With electric mixer, mix flour, pecans, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt on lowest setting in large bowl until combined. Add room-temperature butter and half of egg mixture and beat on lowest setting, taking care not to splatter ingredients, until mixture starts to come together, about 15 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl, add remaining egg mixture, and beat on medium speed until batter is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes (scrape down sides of bowl again after 1 minute).

Add 5 cups batter to prepared Bundt pan, using rubber spatula to smooth out surface. Sprinkle streusel evenly over batter and then cover with remaining batter, spreading it out evenly.

Bake until skewer inserted into middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs attached, about 60 minutes. Cool cake in pan on wire rack for 30 minutes, then invert onto wire rack to cool completely before glazing, about 1 hour.

For Glaze: Whisk together sugar, syrup, and milk. Using fork or whisk, drizzle glaze over top and sides of cake. Slice and serve.

Make Ahead The finished cake can be wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. If you want to plan ahead even further, wrap the cooled but unglazed cake in two layers of plastic and then one layer of foil and freeze the cake for several weeks. Defrost the wrapped cake overnight on the counter, glaze, and serve.