Apple Coffee Cake with Crumble Topping
Servings 12
Super moist apple coffee cake with fresh apples, a crumble topping, and apple butter icing. It's a great fall treat that's like eating apple pie in cake form!
Equipment
- 1 Large tube pan or 9'x13' pan
Ingredients
Cinnamon Crumble Topping
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- ⅔ cup brown sugar, either light or dark
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Apples
- 1½ pounds apples (~3 medium apples), granny smith, jonagold, or honeycrisp
- 2 tsp all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
Cake Batter
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp fine kosher salt
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp each ground nutmeg and ground ginger
- 8 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
- 4 tbsp oil , vegetable, canola, or grapeseed
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ¾ cup sour cream
- ¾ cup milk, whole or 2% recommended
Cinnamon Sugar Filling
- ⅔ cup brown sugar, light or dark
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Apple Butter Icing*
- 2 cup powdered sugar
- 3-5 tsp milk
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp apple butter , optional
Instructions
Prepare the Crumble and Filling
- In a bowl, mix all of the ingredients of the crumble topping together until moistened and a bunch of crumbs come together. Set aside for now.
- In a separate bowl, toss the cinnamon sugar filling ingredients (brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon) until well mixed. Set this aside as well.
Prepare the Apples
- Wash, peel, and core the apples. Chop the apples into small pieces no larger than ¼ inch wide. Feel free to cut a quarter of one of the apples into thin slices as well to lay on top of the cake.
- Toss the apples in a bowl with the flour and cinnamon and set aside.
Make the Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and grease your baking pan. If using a bundt or angel food cake pan, make sure it is very well greased so the cake slides out easily.
- In the bowl of a mixer (or large bowl + hand mixer), combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until well mixed.
- Cut the butter into a few large slices. While running your mixer on low speed, add the butter one piece at a time. Then slowly drizzle in the oil and turn the mixer up to medium speed until the mixture resembles sand (2-3 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla, until the mixture resembles a thick paste.
- Whisk the milk and sour cream together in a large measuring cup and quickly microwave for 20 seconds to bring the mixture up to room temp. Then, while running your mixer on low speed, slowly stream in the liquid to incorporate it into the batter. Don't try to force the liquid in too quickly--it took me almost a minute to add all of it in.
- Continue beating until the batter is smooth and then fold in ¾ of the chopped apples.
- Pour ½ of the batter into the baking pan, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar filling on top in an even layer. Top with the remaining ½ batter, the remaining apples, and then lastly the crumble topping.
- Bake for 57-65 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you're using a rectangular 9"x13" pan, place the pan onto a wire rack to cool completely. If you're using an angel food or bundt cake pan, let the cake rest for 10 minutes in the pan before flipping out onto a large plate (and then flipping again so the crumble side is facing up).
Apple Butter Icing
- Once the cake has cooled down, make the icing by whisking all of the ingredients together in a bowl until smooth. Add more or less milk depending on your desired consistency.
- Drizzle the icing on top of the cake. Enjoy!
Notes
*The apple butter for the icing is optional if you don't have it. Feel free to replace it with ¼ tsp of ground cinnamon, or just omit it completely and leave it as a simple vanilla icing.
- Reverse Creaming: The cake batter uses the reverse creaming method, in which dry ingredients are mixed with fat first and liquids are added last. This creates a denser crumb and softer cake that isn't prone to gluten development.
- Apples: Choose apples that are crisp and tart so that they don't disintegrate during the baking process.
- Tightly wrap leftovers and store in the fridge for up to 5 days.
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