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No cake mix here, just a from-scratch sour cream batter with a ribbon of cinnamon and brown sugar running through every slice. The swirl is mixed dry, no butter, no nuts, so it stays suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom the way a streusel does. It bakes in a standard 9×13 pan in about an hour, and you can pour on the powdered sugar glaze while it’s warm or skip it and call it a coffee cake.
The Honey Bun Memory That Started This Whole Thing
Most honey bun cake recipes start with a box of yellow cake mix, and that’s an easy path, but it’s not the one I wanted. I developed this one because I was chasing the honey buns we used to pull apart and eat warm with butter in college, and a doctored mix wasn’t going to get me there.
What surprised me is that the from-scratch version isn’t any more work than a box, the batter comes together in one bowl before your oven even finishes preheating. It just tastes like something you actually made, because you did. This is the cake that finally got that memory right, without late night cram sessions.
I Wanted a Moist Cake with a Cinnamon Swirl, Not a Dry One
Most cinnamon swirl cakes lean on a streusel, and streusel means butter and usually pecans sitting in the middle of the batter. I tried that here first and it sank straight to the bottom of the pan.
So I stripped it down to just brown sugar, cinnamon, and a little nutmeg, no butter, no nuts, just dry ingredients layered through the batter. It stays suspended where you want it, and it keeps the cake moist instead of turning it into a cake with a heavy, center. I used the same trick in my snickerdoodle banana bread with a cinnamon sugar swirl, where keeping the layer dry is what keeps it from disappearing into the loaf.
No Cake Mix, and it Stays Soft for Days
Every honey bun cake I’ve come across starts with a box of yellow cake mix. This one doesn’t, and you’d never guess it from how it turns out. Cake flour keeps the crumb light and soft and full-fat sour cream is what keeps it moist on day three, not just warm out of the oven.
It’s amazingly moist with just the right amount of sweetness, which is really the whole reason to make this over any version built on a box. If a more traditional coffee cake is what you’re after, my cream cheese filled coffee cake with almond streusel takes that same moist crumb in a completely different direction.
Tips for the Perfect Honey Bun Cake
- Set your butter and eggs out 30 to 45 minutes before you start. Cold butter won’t cream properly, and it’ll throw off the texture of the whole cake.
- Use cake flour, not all-purpose, if you can find it. It’s what keeps this crumb tender instead of dense, and it’s sitting right next to the all-purpose flour in the baking aisle.
- Don’t worry if the top layer of batter doesn’t fully cover the cinnamon swirl when you spread it. The batter is thick and it won’t smooth out perfectly, and any gaps fill in as it bakes.
- Pour the glaze on once the cake has cooled about 5 minutes, not straight out of the oven. Warm lets it soak in slightly. Hot melts it into a puddle that runs right off.
- Skip the glaze entirely if you want this as a coffee cake instead of a honey bun cake. It holds up fine either way, and if cake is your thing, my full collection of cakes and cupcakes has plenty more to bake through.
- Store it covered at room temperature for up to three days. The fridge will dry it out fast, so leave it on the counter.
Two ingredients worth getting right
The exact amounts are in the recipe card below.
- Cake flour. All-purpose will work if that’s what you have on hand, the cake will still turn out fine, just with a slightly more bread-like crumb instead of the finer, more delicate texture cake flour gives you.
- Full-fat sour cream. Skip the reduced-fat version here. It has more water and less fat, which thins the batter and leaves the cake a little less rich. Let it sit out with your butter and eggs so it blends in smoothly instead of seizing up the batter when it hits the mix.
How to Make Honey Bun Cake From Scratch
Step One: Make the cake batter
Step Two: Make the swirl
Step Three: Layer
Step Four: Bake
Step Five: Make the glaze
Step Six: Frost
This is the kind of cake you make once and then keep coming back to, because it’s every bit as soft and sweet as the memory that inspired it, without a box of cake mix anywhere in sight.
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Equipment
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 ¼ cups cake flour
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter room temp
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 2 eggs room temp
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 cup whole milk
Cinnamon Swirl:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Icing:
- 1 ½ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350º. Spray a 9 x 13 baking pan with cooking spray.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt and set aside.
- Add butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and add eggs one at a time, beating after each until incorporated. Add vanilla and sour cream and beat until smooth.
- With the mixer on low, add ½ of the dry ingredients and beat until combined, add ½ of the milk and repeat. Beat only until the flour is incorporated.
- In a small bowl combine brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- Add half of the cake batter to the bottom of the pan. Smooth the top and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar mixture. Dollop the remaining cake batter on top, and spread to the edges of the pan, there might be gaps. Take a knife and swirl it through the batter.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a tooth pick comes out dry. Let it sit for 5 minutes to cool slightly.
- In a medium bowl, combine the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Pour it over the cake while it is still warm and let it cool completely before cutting.
Notes
- A toothpick inserted in the center should come out with a few moist crumbs, not wet batter.
- Run a butter knife through the batter in a loose zigzag, not a stir, so the cinnamon layer stays a ribbon instead of blending in.
- This cake freezes well for up to 2 months. Wrap slices individually so you can pull out just what you need.
