Who is eating our Sourcream Coffeecake? What role does it play in their lives? For many it’s a daily or weekly treat eaten at breakfast or with coffee later in the day, just a flavorful part of life. For many others, it’s also their go-to gift. It’s so widely enjoyed that it’s a safe bet as a gift for pretty much any occasion. That’s why we ship literally thousands of them around the country in November and December, months when many American families are gathering and celebrating for holidays and school breaks.
We asked our customers and the Bakehouse staff if they had any personal stories to share about the role our Sourcream Coffeecake plays in their life. Here is a sample of what we heard.
Eric, BH Service Specialist
My mom adores our coffee cake. Here are two vignettes about her love for the classic Sourcream Coffeecake:
Our classic Sourcream Coffeecake is my mom’s absolute favorite. She has always had a penchant for cinnamon coffee cakes, but none have won her over like ours. Whenever I give her one, she enjoys a slice immediately, but then meticulously cuts the cake into small slices that she individually wraps and freezes. I’ve told her countless times she doesn’t need to do this because I can get her more whenever she’d like. A slice with her morning coffee is practically a ritual now, but sometimes she indulges another in the evening paired with a cup of Zingerman’s Detroit Street Decaf (my parents are obsessed with those beans!)
On her most recent visit back home to South Korea, I gave her a coffee cake to enjoy with her parents and siblings. She looked forward to sharing some with her family and then having the leftovers with coffee during the course of her stay. When she returned to Michigan, she lamented that her family ate the whole coffee cake in one go. We shared a laugh at how her plan to enjoy the coffee cake with her morning coffee was ruined. The coffee cake spent more time in transit to Korea than it did getting devoured in one sitting, but in the end she got the last laugh because she had slices waiting in the freezer at home!
Corynn, Marketing Manager & Photographer
One of my favorite places to visit growing up was my Aunt Linda and Uncle Dave’s house in Tampa, Florida. Having only ever lived in west Michigan, with its endless gray winters and mountains of lake effect snow, Florida felt like an exciting, colorful oasis.
I was ecstatic when my parents agreed to let me and a friend go there for senior year spring break. Unfortunately, the shingles virus that my dad had been battling the week before also had exciting travel plans for spring break—straight into my immune system. I found out the very hard way that I never received the chicken pox vaccine as a baby and spent the majority of my trip in bed, while my Aunt Linda diligently tended to me.
As a thank you (but probably more of a “sorry”), my mom sent our Sourcream Coffeecake via Zingerman’s Mail Order at the end of the week. By then, I had recovered enough to begin eating again and decided something simple and sweet was exactly what I needed. The first bite confirmed that this was a simple coffee cake, but it was also so much more than that. It was buttery and vanilla-y, deeply comforting, and somehow nostalgic; something you’d want to savor. This was my introduction to both the world of Zingerman’s and the idea that “simple” could be mind blowing. It would not be an exaggeration to say that first taste was the beginning of my love of good food, a love that has shaped my path and led me to where I am today.
ZMO, “Thanks and Appreciations,” Sept. 2026 issue of Workin’, pg. 5:
Hi, Mo and Crew, A well deserved 10 out of 10. I’ve been buying the Sour Cream Coffee Cake for years. We got hooked on your wonderful coffee cake after seeing Nate Berkus tout it on his show many years ago. At first, I would buy one. We’d have a few pieces, I would slice the rest up and freeze it to enjoy in the future. Now, I buy two at a time. We still eat a few slices, but now I have about two dozen individually frozen slices in my deep freeze from this order to parcel out for the two of us over the next couple of months. Nothing is as consistently excellent as the Sour Cream cake. Plus, I love the cartoon box. Now, we’re waiting for the Gingerbread cake. It’s a close second to the Sour Cream. I hope you keep making this forever
From an Anonymous Purchaser:
(Sometimes the story surrounding our cake is on the sad side. Food can help in periods of grief.)
I wanted to let you know my personal best of ordering from Zingerman’s. My neighbors a few houses down the street are graduates of Michigan’s college in Rensselaer and are very big Zingerman’s fans. Unfortunately, the wife’s mother was close to death from a long fought illness and part of my last order was your very unique Sour Cream Coffee Cake, a favorite of the entire family (both sides) for years. I included it in my order to have for the coming funeral the family was preparing for and the arrival of various families from several states, including California and Massachusetts.
I was able to share the coffee cake and an offer of a bedroom to their guests this month. Mom died that same afternoon. The tears were comforted with smiles about the memories of the Wisconsin Midwestern’s learning about Zingerman’s when their daughter chose Michigan for college (over our local UW Madison!) and the fellow student she met and married who took her to Ann Arbor to meet his parents with brunch at Zingerman’s. A very favorite family story shared often when telling how the young man won his lady and her family. Thank you for helping me to give smiles to the tears of these wonderful people.
Amy, Co-Managing Partner
And to close out this piece, this is my personal story about our Sourcream Coffeecake:
We lived in Ann Arbor from 1988 until 1996. It was during this time that our Sourcream Coffeecake became a staple of our family’s weekly menu. To this day we often have one on our kitchen counter available for breakfast, afternoon snacks, and late night treats. My son Jake, who you’ll meet in a couple of lines, now has his own home and his own children and when I visit his house there’s almost always a coffee cake on his counter. It makes me smile when I see it there.
It all started when we first discovered the Deli in 1988 and the Sourcream Coffeecake was our preferred ending to our Deli meal. I made $5.25 an hour as a cook at The Earle and Geoff, my husband, was contributing a graduate student’s stipend to our family budget. Going to the Deli was a big treat and the coffee cake was an important part of it.
Both of our children were born during this period. I worked on the weekends so that I could take weekdays off allowing us to save on childcare. To pass the time on most Saturday mornings, Geoff developed a routine of bringing young Jake first to what was our favorite toy store, White Rabbit, where he bought him a new plastic animal almost every week, and then on to Zingerman’s Deli where they’d enjoy Sourcream Coffeecake together. We had an incredible collection of toy animals and countless slices of coffee cake under our belts by the time we left town.
We left Ann Arbor when Jake was 5 and returned 4 years later. As we were planning our trip back we asked Jake what he most looked forward to doing when we got back to Ann Arbor. His response? “Eat a piece of Sourcream Coffeecake.”
Do you have a personal story you’d like to share about our Sourcream Coffeecake? Please share it with us at [email protected]. We’d like to hear from you.
She has been an avid food lover and baker since her childhood in Nova Scotia, Canada. After high school Amy moved to Cambridge, MA and received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. She then followed her passion for food and learned to cook and bake at L’ecole de Gastronomie Francaise at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, France as well as in Michigan restaurants. In 1999 she received her MBA from Columbia University.
Amy came to Zingerman’s Bakehouse when it opened in 1992 as one of the original bakers on the staff of eight. She soon became the first manager of the bread bakery, then the manager of the pastry kitchen and in 2000 she became a partner.
Amy has been working in the food world for over 20 years and is passionate about hands-on baking, teaching about baking and business, developing businesses and people. As well as teaching at BAKE! Amy presents for ZingTrain on our business practices. A few of the Bakehouse items she is personally responsible for developing are the Old School Apple Pie, Buenos Aires Brownies, and our Gingerbread Coffeecake. In addition to developing items, Amy is a promoter of classic bakery favorites from many cultures and has brought traditional standards to the Bakehouse such as Paris Brest, Hummingbird Cake, and Maple Cream Cookies.
