How to Make a Coffee Cake Pantry Mix (Plus a Genius Jam Trick)

There’s something really satisfying about pulling a jar off your pantry shelf and knowing dinner—or in this case, a cozy Saturday morning treat—is already halfway done.

That’s exactly what this coffee cake pantry mix does for us. It’s buttery, dense, and simple in the best possible way. Think of the kind of slice you’d get at a coffee shop—thick, tender, and just sweet enough—but made from ingredients you already have on hand, at a fraction of the cost.

And here’s my favorite part: we use our home-canned jams to change up the flavor every single time. One week it’s blueberry vanilla, the next it’s strawberry, the next it’s peach. Same base mix, totally different experience.

Let me show you how to put together several jars at once and how to bake one up when you’re ready.

What Goes Into the Jar

This is a pantry mix, which means we’re layering the dry ingredients right into a quart jar so it’s ready to go whenever we need it. Here’s what you’ll need per jar:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup buttermilk powder
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

A Note on Buttermilk Powder

Can you use regular milk powder? You can—but it will change the flavor. The buttermilk powder gives this coffee cake that subtle tang that makes it taste like something from a real bakery. If you can find it, use it. It’s worth it.

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If you’re using regular-mouth jars, grab a funnel. Wide-mouth jars are easier to work with for this kind of mix, especially when you get to the flour. Just layer the ingredients in order and you’re set.

Wet Ingredients

When you’re ready to make your coffee cake, preheat your oven to 350°F and butter an 8×4 loaf pan. (Butter the pan first—trust me, it’s easy to forget once you start mixing.)

In a mixing bowl, combine:

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup oil (avocado or coconut both work great here)

Give that a good stir, then dump in the contents of your quart jar. Mix until combined. The batter will be thick—that’s exactly what you want. If it feels too stiff, add a small splash of water and stir again until it loosens up slightly. It should still be very thick, but pourable.

Adding the Jam

This is the part that makes this recipe fun. We’re doing a layered jam swirl, which sounds fancy but is really simple.

1. Pour half the batter into your buttered loaf pan and spread it out evenly.
2. Add 2 spoonfuls of jam on top and swirl it in gently with a chopstick or skewer. Try not to poke all the way through to the bottom—otherwise the jam sinks.
3. Pour the remaining batter on top.
4. Add 2 more small dollops of jam and swirl again.

If your jam is on the thinner side, you can drizzle it on. Thicker jams—like our home-canned blueberry vanilla—are best applied by the spoonful and swirled in.

It won’t look perfectly bakery-pretty, and that’s okay. It’ll still taste wonderful.

Bake at 350°F for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Keep an eye on it near the end—if the top is getting dark, tent it loosely with foil.

This is one of the best ways we’ve found to use up our home-canned jams throughout the year. Instead of pulling out a jar and eating it with toast for a week straight, we work it into baked goods like this one.

Blueberry vanilla is our personal favorite with this coffee cake. We’ve made that jam on the channel—I’ll link it in the description. But honestly, any jam you’ve got will work. Strawberry, peach, blackberry, apple butter—all of it belongs here.

This recipe is featured in the Mix and Jars Volume 2 cookbook!

Why Pantry Mixes Are Worth Making

Raise your hand if you’ve stood in the kitchen at 7am trying to figure out if you have everything for a recipe and given up halfway through.

Pantry mixes solve that problem. When the dry ingredients are already measured and layered in a jar, you only have to think about the wet ingredients—and those are usually things you always have (egg, water, oil). There’s no hunting for the baking powder or measuring out flour while you’re half asleep.

It also makes a great gift. A labeled quart jar with a little card listing the wet ingredients? That’s a thoughtful, practical, inexpensive present for someone who loves to bake.