Apple Crumb Cake
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Ease into fall with this buttery apple crumb cake studded with apples and finished with a crunchy cinnamon crumb topping.
Table of Contents
This morning when I walked out the door the air felt…different. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and while I wasn’t uncomfortably cold, something made me run back inside and grab a sweatshirt. Slipping into a fleecy hooded sweatshirt just felt right.
It’s that time, friends. And I think I’m finally ready.
I Crumble For Autumn Apple Cake
As proof, I broke out the first apple baked goods of the season. While the September days are still rather hot around these parts, the mornings are cool and crisp. It’s the kind of weather that begs for something a little cozier than a bowl of cereal, something like this Apple Crumb Cake.
Warm, sweet, and gently spiced this is just the thing to ease you into Fall. It’s not super in-your-face with the Autumn-ness. There’s no brazen pumpkin spice, no overpowering scent of cloves, and definitely no hint at Halloween or Thanksgiving. Instead there’s the subtle scent of cinnamon, a hint of nutmeg, and the just-barely-there crunch of apples. It’s Autumn goodness, but in a super chill, non-confrontational way, that could easily feel right-at-home in any other season of the year.
Apple Coffee Cake: Dessert With A Good Excuse
I’m going to cut to the chase here. This Apple Crumb Cake is an excuse to eat dessert for breakfast. This is nothing new, of course. We’ve been coming up with ways to eat cake for breakfast for centuries. Pancakes, waffles, muffins. They’re all cake, people.
But of all the cake-for-breakfast incarnations out there, the coffee cake did the worst job at hiding it’s dessert-ness. I can just imagine the recipe development meeting now.
Guy #1: Hmmmmm….pancakes seem to be a hit and we managed to slip muffins through, but we really need another way to eat cake for breakfast.
Guy #2: I know! Let’s see…What if we made a cake, topped it with a buttery crumble and then drizzled it with sugar syrup! That totally makes it breakfast, right?
Guy #1: By golly, I think you’re on to something. Sounds like the perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee. In fact, I think we’ll call it Coffee Cake!
And that’s how we’ve been enjoying apple crumb cake for breakfast all these years.
Buttery Apple Crumb Cake
I’m not even going to try to convince you that this is healthy. It’s not. It’s buttery cake topped with buttery crumble topped with apple cider-spiked glaze… with a little bit of fruit in the middle. In other words, it’s darn delicious.
So trade in your swimsuit for some stretchy pants, grab a blanket, and cozy up with a cup of your morning joe, and a slice of this Apple Crumb Cake. It’s fall, and it’s totally allowed. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get to work on my sweater body.
And just in case you are in central Ohio and you’re looking for some apples to pick, or more family focused fall festivities (like slides, pond fishing, corn pit, bouncers, tractor rides, farm markets, and apple cider, etc) then check out all the great things to do in my old hometown in this awesome post from my pal Julie.
Apple Crumb Cake Recipe
Ingredients
For the crumb:
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 cup butter, melted (2 sticks )
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 large or 3 small tart apples ( (such as honeycrisp, granny smith, or pink lady), peeled and chopped)
For the cake:
- 8 Tablespoons butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
For the glaze:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 - 2 Tablespoons apple cider
- 1 - 2 Tablespoons milk
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
For the crumb:
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together 3 cups flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the melted butter and vanilla extracts and stir until the mixture is evenly moist. Set aside.
For the batter:
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and sour cream. Meanwhile, in another bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder. Add this to the butter mixture, stirring until the ingredients are just combined.
To assemble:
- Spread half the batter into a thin layer at the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle the apple chunks evenly over the batter. Top with about 1 cup of the crumble mixture. Spread the remaining batter over top followed by the rest of the crumble.
- Bake the mixture for 35-40 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. If the top gets too brown, cover with foil for the last 10-15 minutes.
- While the coffee cake bakes, whisk together the powdered sugar, cider, milk, and salt. Serve the cake warm with the cider drizzle. This recipe can be made up to two days in advance. Store in an airtight container or in the pan with saran wrap on top.
Notes
- The batter is quite thick and will have to be spread thin to fit the 9 x 13 inch pan. It will rise in the oven.
Nutrition
Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion
I just made this for thanksgiving and it was a hit! Yes the batter is very thick and some people said it was too hard to spread or there was barely enough and they gave up. Well I wet my hands to spread the top layer of the batter as someone suggested and it worked out fine. The change I made was that I didn’t add salt to the crumble and I cut the crumble recipe in half. I also made a maple icing so I added maple syrup and maple extract to a basic icing recipe. With the apples, cinnamon, and maple flavors it was perfect for fall. Thank you for this recipe I will definitely make it again!
I Love this cake!!! I think that it is perfect for anytime of the day. I switched it up and use some fresh peaches that I cooked down with spices and added to the cake. The cake was perfect. Thank You for this recipe.
That sounds wonderful! So glad you enjoyed it!
Made this yesterday and it was delicious. There were not to many crumbs ( never to many crumbs). I just put extra in the middle layer. I had apples to use up so I added maybe one extra. The batter is thick. I used a big spoon that I kept wetting with water to spread it out. A little tougher with the top layer but I managed.
I just made this recipe and I’m in love!! I never follow recipies exactly but I did this time. I read the reviews/comments but did not make adjustments. It is perfect!! Moist and delicious. Do yourself a favor, don’t read the comments, just follow the recipe exactly!! No its not too thick… no its not too sweet and no, there is not too much topping. 5 stars for this one!
This recipe is disappointing and wholly inaccurate. I had this recipe in my oven for an hour and 15 minutes, and the batter on the bottom never cooked through. I also had a difficult time spreading the second layer of batter…too thick. There is also WAY too much crumb topping. I pretty much just felt like I was eating mouthfuls of floury sugar instead of anything resembling a cake. Almost forgot I had even put any apples in it to begin with. I will not make this again.
This recipe looks phenomenal! We are working on our third bushel of apples to stock up applesauce for the winter. We live in the Columbus area but drive to Walnut Creek (Holmes County aka Amish country) to a favorite orchard. The apples are 1/3 the price of anywhere in our immediate area. I have a fall ladies luncheon I’m going to this coming weekend and this apple cake will be perfect to take! Thank you for posting such an “applelicious” recipe!
Too much “crumb”. Would have been much better with 1/2 as much so you could really taste the apples.
Made this for the 1st time today & it’s currently baking – house smells delish! I doubled the vanilla in both the crumb & batter because I do that for every recipe. I also added 1 tsp pie spice to the batter & used 1/2 brown, 1/2 white sugar as I like to build depth of flavor in every layer. Since I’m surprising my stepmom w/this at work when it’s done, I’m putting the glaze on the side so folks can add their own if they choose. I made my cinnamon roll glaze as I think it again is a little more flavorful: 4 ozs light cream cheese & 4 tblsp salted butter (both room temp), 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, & 2 tblsp 1/2 & 1/2 (can easily sub milk or cream). Mix until blended smoothly.
I made this recipe as muffins and they were so so good. The only thing I did differently was sautéed the apples in a bit of butter and brown sugar with a dash of cinnamon. We own a B&B and the guests loved them. So moist and very pretty. Thanks for sharing!
Jan
This recipe was very good! I would possibly add a little more Apple. I used Cortlands. The crumb topping is also great, not to much for me!
Yours looks delicious but I couldn’t get it to spread out in a 9×9, much less if I’d used a 9×13. So I spread it in one layer, put the apples on top and half the topping. Unfortunately this means half of my topping was wasted, so in the garbage bin it went :/ looking forward to trying it, it’s still in the oven and starting to smell good!
Really wishing I would have read the comments on here about the crumb topping and batter. Batter was definitely too sticky and VERY hard to spread the second layer. I’m thinking it would be easier to take a cookie dough baller and scoop the batter eveningly and then lightly spreading the second layer to avoid so much movement. I threw away about half of the crumb top… WAYYYYY too much! Otherwise, it’s baking now and smells delicious… hopefully it tastes as good as it smells.
I hope it tasted wonderful for you! The cookie dough baller is a great idea for handling the thick dough.
thank you for the recipe. This is the 3rd time I made it. My husband likes it so much. I made some changes, added more apples, for 1/2 c sugar I used 1/4 cup, and for 1 c brown sugar, I used 3/4. I also eliminated the glaze. We did not miss the less sugar. We don’t eat it for breakfast, it is desert after dinner. I also freeze it in small quantities, it is als very good after frozen for a few months, We are only 2 people and I freeze it so my husband can’t eat it till it is all gone.
Very good recipe and a keeper. Thank you.
So glad you and your husband enjoy it! And thanks for the tip about freezing. I will have to freeze half next time!
I’ve made this recipe twice now. Fortunately I read the comments before I began the first attempt.
The CRUMB: WAY TOO MUCH SALT. I use salted butter. Did NOT add any additional salt. Crumb is perfect. Can’t figure out why you add a teaspoon of salt?
I found it easiest to put on food prep gloves and mix the butter into crumb mixture with my hands.
Peel and chop apples immediately after mixing crumb, definitely before you start mixing batter. I used a little fruit fresh to keep my chopped apples from turning brown while they sat off to the side.
2 large, or 3 small apples? What is a large apple? what is a small apple? For some the perspective may vary. I used 2-1/2 to 3 cups of chopped apple. Chopped how small? I chopped mine pretty small. less than 1/4″ inch.
Mix flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder for batter first, and set aside. Then start mixing wet ingredients for batter.
I used my kitchen scale to determine how much is half of the batter.
How do you spread such a sticky batter? I wet my hand under running water, then spread a little batter. When the batter starts to stick to my hand I rinse my hand clean under running water, shake excess water off my hand, and start spreading again. Repeat as many times as needed until first layer of batter is spread out evenly. Be careful not carry too much water into batter by shaking excess water off your hand before trying to spread batter.
There’s too much crumb? possibly I would agree, BUT! Why only put 1 cup of crumb on top of apples. With so much crumb mixture I put almost 3 cups of crumb mixture on top of apples. Use enough crumb to completely cover the apples.
Spreading second half of batter on top of apple crumb layer, use the wet hand method again. It works great.
Someone wrote there isn’t enough mixture to fill the pan, and they didn’t even put it in the oven. I’m really sorry to hear the recipe didn’t work for that person. As I stated I’ve made this recipe twice now. Each time my 9×13 pan was about 1/4″ below the top when it was ready to go in the oven, actually a little higher than the picture of the finished product in the stoneware dish pictured above. After baking there was about a half of rise. Everything held together nicely, and not spill over, or fall out the sides of the pan.
My oven cooks unevenly. My remedy is to line the oven rack with aluminum foil, then cut out rectangle, leaving 2″ inches of the ends and sides of pan shielded from the heat. This allows the center to cook without burning the sides and turning them into a crispy crunchy failure. I check for done after 50 minutes, usually end up with almost 60 minutes baking time.
April 7th is National Coffee cake day. I Made this for co-workers to celebrate the day. It was big hit.
Very nice cake