This chai apple cider donut cake is a tender, flavorful cake that is perfect for Fall. This cake uses a combination of reduced apple cider and apple sauce for a bold apple flavor and moist texture. It’s coated with melted butter and chai-spiced cinnamon sugar.
Can we get more appreciation for apple cider? I am always amped to go to the apple orchard and spend all my money on overpriced apple cider and fresh donuts lol. If you love apple cider donuts, you’ll love this apple cider donut cake. And since my spice cabinet is pretty much my best friend in the Fall, I had to add a twist to this recipe by trading the traditional sugar coating for a chai-spiced cinnamon sugar.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- The cake is super moist and tender, made with oil, applesauce, and sour cream.
- Made with fresh apple cider that is reduced down, allowing you to get more apple flavor into the cake.
- It’s essentially the cake version of one of the most iconic fall desserts — apple cider donuts!
- Add a twist to traditional apple cider donuts by using chai-spiced sugar, which brings a lot of rich, autumnal flavors.
If you love apple desserts for Fall, there additional recipes I’d recommend you check out are Apple Pie Coffee Cake, Puff Pastry Apple Galette, or Dutch Apple Pie.
Ingredients for Chai Apple Cider Donut Cake
- Fresh Apple Cider: Use fresh apple cider, which has a natural, sweet, bold flavor. Avoiding shelf-stable brands, which tend to have added or artificial flavors.
- Reducing the apple cider on the stovetop before baking concentrates down the flavors, so that you can infuse more apple flavor into the cake without drowning it in liquid.
- Plain, Unsweetened Applesauce: Applesauce is an MVP ingredient that adds so much moisture to the cake.
- Sour Cream: Adds moisture, flavor, and richness to the cake. Use full-fat sour cream if you can.
- All-Purpose Flour: I recommend measuring flour with a scale for the best results, since it’s easy to over or under measure. If you don’t have a scale then make sure to use the spoon-and-level method.
- Butter: Softened butter for the cake, melted butter to coat the cake.
- Oil: Pick any neutral oil for the cake.
- Large Eggs: Make sure the eggs are at room temperature.
- Soak eggs in a bowl of hot water for 5-10 minutes to bring them to room temperature.
- Spices: Ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves, and cardamom. These will all come together into the chai sugar and bring a ton of flavor.
- Granulated Sugar and Light Brown Sugar: I like a combination of granulated sugar + light brown sugar for the cake. Brown sugar adds a nice, rich flavor and also infuses some moisture.
- Baking Soda & Baking Powder: Rises the cake
- Vanilla Extract: Use pure vanilla extract for the best flavor.
You will also need a 10-12 cup capacity bundt cake pan. I debated a long time about what shape of pan to bake this chai apple cider donut cake in, and ended up with the Nordicware Elegant Party Bundt Pan. Something about this pan screams donut and I can’t explain why haha.
Tips for Apple Cider Donut Cake
- Use room temperature ingredients: Cold ingredients do not mix together well or evenly, which impacts the cake’s texture. For the best apple cider donut cake, make sure to bring all of your ingredients to room temperature before baking.
- Let the cake rest in the pan for 15 minutes before flipping it out. Fresh out of the oven bundt cake is too hot and fragile. It will break and you will burn yourself if you don’t let the cake set and cool a bit before removing it from the pan.
- Don’t over-mix the batter: When adding dry ingredients to the batter, mix until the flour is combined. Over-mixing causes gluten to develop, which results in a tough, gummy cake.
- Don’t be afraid to get messy: coating an entire bundt cake with chai sugar is no easy feat. It can get messy. I recommend putting the cake onto a rack with a sheet pan below it to catch any fallen sugar. The easiest way to do it is to sprinkle sugar on top and then use your hands to press it along the sides.
FAQs
How should I store apple cider donut cake?
Store cake in an airtight container, or tightly wrapped. You do not need to refrigerate this cake, but note that if you do that it may dry out a bit from the cold. It’ll last for around 3 days on the counter.
What should I serve with chai apple cider donut cake?
Apple cider donut cake goes great with ice cream, whipped cream, coffee, or a glass of bourbon or brandy. You can also really go over the top and add a drizzle of caramel sauce to make it a caramel apple cider cake.
Can I bake this recipe into muffins?
Yes you can bake this recipe into muffins–it will make 16-18 muffins, depending on how much batter you use for each one. I’d recommend filling the muffin tins as full as possible for nice, tall muffins. Bake the muffins at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Once they have cooled, brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
Pin & Save for Later
Are you interested in making this recipe but not ready to bake yet? Not to worry! You can hover over (or tap on mobile/tablet) any image in this post to save it to Pinterest. You can also directly pin the recipe card down below. The recipe will be waiting for you when you need it. 🙂
Happy baking my friends and as always, hope you love your apple cider donut cake!
Chai Apple Cider Donut Cake
Moist and fluffy apple cider donut cake coated with chai-spice cinnamon sugar. Made with fresh apple cider and lots of cozy spices.
Ingredients
Apple Cider Bundt Cake
- 1 cup apple cider
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup unsweetened applesauce
- ½ cup (120g) sour cream
- 2½ cups (300g) all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ cup (113g) unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
- ⅔ cup (138g) light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- ¼ cup (52g) oil
For Coating
- ¼ cup melted butter
- 6 tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp each of ground ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice
Instructions
- Prepare wet ingredients. Heat the apple cider in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Allow it to simmer until it has reduced in half (from 1 cup to ½ cup). This can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes, depending on your stove and cookware. Pour the apple cider into a heatproof cup or bowl to cool, and then whisk in the vanilla extract, applesauce, and sour cream.
- Prepare dry ingredients. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice together in a medium bowl to combine them.
- Make bundt cake. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on high speed for 2-3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl between each egg. Continue beating until the eggs are fully combined.
- While continuing to run the mixer, stream in the oil and beat on high speed for 1-2 minutes, until the batter is very smooth.
- Grab the wet and dry ingredients that you had previously prepared. Alternate folding in ⅓ of the dry ingredients, ½ of the wet ingredients, another ⅓ of dry ingredients, the remaining wet ingredients, and then the remaining dry ingredients. Gently mix on low speed until the batter is smooth, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Generously grease a 10-12 cup bundt cake pan. Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes in the pan before flipping it out onto a board or rack to cool completely.
- Coat cake in chai sugar. Mix the granulated sugar with cinnamon and other spices until evenly distributed. Once the cake is fully cool, brush the melted butter along the top, sides, and inside with the melted butter.
- Sprinkle and press the chai sugar all over the cake. This is going to be messy so I recommend doing it on a rack with a sheet pan underneath to catch any sugar that falls. Cut into slices and enjoy!
Notes
- Make sure ingredients are at room temperature before baking. You can quickly warm the eggs by soaking them in a bowl of hot water for 5-10 minutes.
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