Apple Coffee Cake

By cnash

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 5 1/2 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 medium Cortland or other baking apple, peeled and sliced

Details

Servings 6
Preparation time 10mins
Cooking time 35mins
Adapted from simplyrecipes.com

Preparation

Step 1

1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9-inch square baking dish with or pie pan with a 4-cup capacity.

In a medium bowl, whisk vigorously together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate small bowl, mix 1/4 a cup of the sugar with the cinnamon, set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Beat in the egg until blended. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk, beating after each addition until just combined.

Pour half of the batter in the bottom of the baking dish. Lay the apple slices on the batter so they just cover the batter (you may have to overlap some slices). Sprinkle the apples with the cinnamon-sugar mixture, reserving a teaspoon or two to sprinkle on top. Spread the rest of the batter over the apples. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar on top.

I made this last night. It was good for dessert and for breakfast today. Very simple since I only had to peel and slice 1 apple and I always have those ingredients on hand. I feel like there should have been more batter though. Next time I make the recipe I will make more batter. I also used brown sugar on top instead of white like suggested.

I made this cake this evening, and it was delicious and very easy to make.

Baked the cake this morning. Delicious! But you definitely need to double the batter. Also, I baked it in a square 8×8 pan which was perfect. I also diced the apple which makes it easier to cut and to eat.

This is tasty but too sweet for breakfast. Its more of a dessert. And I didn’t even use all of the sugar topping. I’d like to try this again with less sugar, a bit more cinnamon, and perhap half the topping mixture put in the middle with the apples.

Made this recipe this morning and am waiting for it to cool. I can tell it’s going to be delicious, though a bit thin. I used a 9×9 silicone pan and it provided so much surface area that it was a thin layer of batter, indeed. Next time I’ll make it in a smaller dish or I’ll increase the batter. But it’s still gonna be tasty!

Great recipe………made it twice and got rave reviews. I’m about to make it again, but make a bit more batter and use vegan ingredients so that my daughter can eat it too. Thanks!

I made this cake tonight, my little girl loves to help me bake. We had lot’s of fun, and it was very easy to make. It tasted DELICIOUS!!!:)

I made this for my family to enjoy at a birthday party, and it was wonderful! I also made an experimental one using halved maraschino cherries mixed with the batter, which went over well (though I prefer the apples, personally!) thank you for the great recipe!

I’ve been haunting this website for the past few months and I have to say that when I finally tried this recipe out it came out as an incredibly moist yet fluffy cake with an excellent layer of dense fruit that had my friends asking for more. Thank you so much!

I just made this and my mom and boyfriend both raved about it. We almost ate the entire thing before it even cooled down. Thanks for a wonderful recipe! I already have orders to make more tomorrow.

Apple Coffee cake was quick, tasty and a delight to serve. I baked in an old tin pie plate,used brown sugar and walnuts, and mixed with apples before adding apples to bottom layer and flattened the apples into the bottom layer with a fork, poured top layer over and added topping with brown sugar, walnuts and cinammon and stirred this in slightly. Also used three Spy apples. I will make this again and again. I sent some to an elderly friend and he asked for more.It was a pleasure to enjoy more of the fruit and less of the cake ingredients. Bakes like a pie. I served with frozen vanilla yogurt.

Do you think that this recipe could use a banana instead of an apple? I was just thinking to change the taste around a bit. Because my family rather into bananas than apples, and the mix is so easy to make.

I also doubled the batter for this recipe and used 6 apples instead of one and added a cup of green rasins since I wanted it to have a lot of filling. I was going to marinate the apple slices and raisins in rum but could not find any so I marinated them in Pepsi and vanilla instead. I used 2 cans of Pepsi and 1tsp vanilla flavoring extract. I marinated it for 24 hours before baking the cake. It actually turned out much better than I thought it would. Adding this much filling did increase the baking time however. After 25 mins the cake batter around the edges was cooked properly but the cake batter that had seeped in between all the apple slices was not. This may however have been due to my oven. I don’t have a proper oven, it’s more of a toaster oven.

HI LIMAYGOLF! Did you really marinate apples in Pepsi and vanilla? Maybe lemon juice and sugar would be better, that’s what we do in Italy. And if you like a lot of tasty filling, maybe you could try and add a few teaspoons of apricot or peach marmalade.

I also accidentally baked it at 325 for the first 10 minutes and so had to turn up the heat and watch it carefully. Fortunately, the cake is nearly foolproof. The final effect of that brown sugar-butter combo was a craggy, crispy topping and a hearty/thick cake. It came together fantastically so this is a recipe I’ll be holding on to for a long time.

I wanted to make this tomorrow morning, but I only have 2% reduced fat milk. Do you think that will work, or should I just wait until my next grocery trip and pick up a whole milk?

Should work fine. FYI, what we usually do is add a little cream to our 2% milk when a recipe calls for whole milk and we only have low-fat. ~Elise

Instead of butter I used apple sauce, instead of whole milk, I used non fat milk and instead of regular sugar, I used brown sugar. This time I had plain flour but next time i’ll probably give whole wheat flour a try. Oh and I had to use Granny Smith because that’s what I had in the fridge.

It turned out great! It was so good that I can only imagine what the real recipe would taste like (yes i miss butter!) I was hoping to save some for my mom but it seems like i’m going to have to bake another one. Thank God it’s so easy and quick to make!

I have to say, the amount of batter this recipe generated wasn’t NEARLY enough to make two layers in a 9″ cake pan. I got one thin layer down, the apples, and then could barely cover half with what was left.

I salvaged it by dumping everything back in the bowl and adding the ingredients to make half again as much batter, then baking the cake with the apples and sugar/cinnamon all mixed in. It came out well, though could have used a little more time in the oven than what the original recipe called for.

I made this cake quite a few times and every time I make it, my flatmates steal a few pieces, so you know it is good!

I stumbled into your site through this recipe — was looking for a good apple pie/crumble recipe to make, and I found this instead. Gotta say, I don’t regret making a batch for my family — it’s an instant favourite. It’s easy to prepare and uses common ingredients, so I can whip up a batch anytime I want. Great recipe!

It seems a perfectly wonderful recipe but I had a feeling 1 cup of flour etc. would not produce enough batter for the size of pans recommended. And one apple barely made it. (I use organic apples and they are on the small side). So, adjusted the flour etc. by 1/2 again, and used 2 apples, I would change the topping to a crumble topping (just add some butter and flour to the cinammon and sugar and mix to a crumble), and if you do this, you have to add about 10 mins to the cooking time. Did I say this recipe is flexible too?! Or else, use a smaller pan and all is great as is! In any case this is much MUCH better than Emeril’s version! Good job.

Is it a necessarity to add in milk?

What is the main purpose for adding?

We live in Riga, Latvia where all kinds of good apples are available in the market. Yesterday, we baked this cake using Latvian apples and … it worked! Although, we used less sugar for the cake and no sugar added for the topping. Thanks for this simple and yummy recipe.

Hi Elise, I made this cake today but I switched the apple with 3 pears. I added cinnamon to the pear with 2 tsp sugar. Skipped the topping. It was very good. Thanks for the recipe. Also lovvve your blog.

Hi! I just made this this morning! Some things that I noticed – it’s very hard to cream such a small quantity of butter with a mixer – next time I will do it with a fork. 1/3 cup sugar for the topping is WAY too much, next time I will probably use a couple of tbls. I had granny smith apples, and used two small ones, but next time might use as many as four and layer them. The batter is a small amount, yes, but if you properly cream your butter it will bake up fluffy and be plenty. I’m considering substituting some sour cream next time for the milk – I think the flavor would be good!

All in all, this is a great base, and can be easily altered to add what you have on hand! We will definitely make it again!

Just thought I’d share that I made this cake gluten- and casein-free, and it was delicious. I used ghee in place of the butter, coconut milk in place of whole milk, and a gluten-free flour mixture. Very good!

While I agree that the sugar is a little on the decadent side, it does make it YUMMY!

Pear season here in Nor-Cal. I substituted pears for the apples. Adding more pears didn’t hurt the recipe. I used 3 medium pears. It was sooo good. Highly recommend.

No, because the leavening starts activating the minute you put the batter together. If you make ahead and bake in the morning, you won’t get rise you should get from this cake. ~Elise

No.4-butter and sugar should set aside instead add them into egg, flour mixture, and milk?

No.5-When I have to put flour mixture with egg and milk into a pan?

The bottom of the layers is half of the butter? and The top of the layer is flour mixture?

Hello Tomomi, you first add the egg into the mixture of sugar and butter. Then you add one third of the flour mixture to the sugar/butter/egg mixture. Then you add one third of the milk. Then you add one third of the flour. Then one third of the milk. Then the rest of the flour. Then the rest of the milk. In question number five, the “batter” is the sugar/butter/egg/flour mixture. Hope that helps! ~Elise

I made this for breakfast and we loved it! I also served this for dessert in the evening with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and it was yummy!Its a simple and very easy recipe with all ingredients on hand to make. I did not double batter as others suggested. It came out just fine!! The batter spreads over the top as it bakes. I did use 1/3 cup brown sugar with cinnamon for topping and we found it not too sweet. I also used sour cream with milk and that made the batter moist. thanks for posting this reicpe.I love the simpilcity of this recipe and its yummy too!

I’m thinking about making this with apples and cranberries as a dessert for Thanksgiving. Does anyone know if I should cook the cranberries first, or just add them raw with the apples? I tried this the original way and it was great!

I love coffee cakes and this one is my new favorite! I used an 8×8 pan and the batter amount was perfect. The only thing I did differently was to melt about 1/4 c butter and mix it w/ 1/3 c brown sugar and subbed that for the white sugar/cinnamon topping. My mom used to make sour cream coffee cake that way and i’ve always been partial to it. I just put little dollops of it all over the top of the cake, didn’t try to spread it evenly or anything. It came out perfect though! Yum!

I’ve been meaning to make this cake for nearly 3 years now and I finally did it this evening – thank you much more than I can say!! It was an awesome cake and I’m making a batch again tomorrow morning. :)

I am a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Mongolia, and once a week I get together with some of my friends (Mongolian and American) to cook dinner. I am the dessert maker, and I am always looking for new recipes. This apple cake is absolutely delicious and easy to make. I doubled this recipe (and did two layers of apples) to accommodate the number of diners, and all was successful.

We made this twice already and each time it was a success! My kids do not eat apples but with this recipe, they devour the cake! thank you so much! Easy to make and such a wonderful cake to have with coffee, tea or anything your heart desires! Thank you!

I have a question though. Would this batter be a good base to hold some other flavor? My sister said it tasted like pancakes, which is not really bad, but I suppose we were just not expecting that. Do you think infusing the milk with say coffee, or more cinnamon would make this taste like a cake than pancakes?

I just tried this recipe and have to say it was delicious but I wish I would’ve kept reading all of the comments to double the ingredients. It definitely was not enough to make two layers and my cake did not come out as pretty as the picture :(

I’m glad to see others had less batter than they expected. I too had trouble covering the top but I was amazed how well it is rising. Its done and cooling a bit before we try it out… I certainly am excited to try it. I thought the idea to add cranberries was wonderful and I’ll probably try it that way very soon. Thanks for posting this cake recipe!

Delicious! Like others, I thought there wasn’t enough batter. It did rise nicely, but it didn’t fill up the standard pie pan that I used. Next time I’ll probably double the recipe. I used the recommended Cortland apples, which have a nice tartness to them. I used a scant 1/4 cup white sugar for the batter, and for the cinnamon sugar I mixed 1 tbsp brown sugar with 1 tsp cinnamon and I didn’t even end up using all of it. It didn’t turn out too sweet and the flavor of the apples really came through. I’m thinking maybe a hint of nutmeg next time? Thanks for this recipe; I’ll definitely make it again. Probably this weekend, actually. :)

This was great! I had some sour cream to use up so I mixed 1/2 a cup of it into 1/2 a cup of milk. It was very moist and tender! Next time I think I’ll make a streusel topping, since that’s one of my favorite parts of a coffee cake.

This was gorgeous! Followed directions to the tee and came out perfectly. Thanks for a great recipe.

Don’t double the batter. I made this in a round cake pan and I was skeptical as I was pouring in the batter, but it turned out to be the perfect ratio of apples to cake.

oh my goodness.! i just made this cake and ate a slice right out of the oven. so simple to make, and super delicious. thanks for the recipe!

I’ve been making this for a while now but, never had the time to comment until now. This is so easy and wonderful to make. I used this recipe to make it into cupcakes for the family to take to school and work. Changing it up a bit each time, sometimes I make it with the apples and sometimes I forget about the apples. Either way it is so good that this has become one of the family favorites. Thank you for posting such a great recipe.

I made this coffee cake for the weekend and we all loved it. I added a dash of nutmeg to the sugar mix and used brown sugar instead of white. I also reduced the amount of sugar considerably. Next time I want to try mixing crushed walnuts in with the cinnamon and sugar.

I jumped on this bandwagon late, but had to comment. I made this cake this morning, and sent it off with my inlaws. I’m not a very experienced baker and had had some doubts while spooning out the batter – it didn’t seem like it would be enough, was pretty thick and needed to be more spread with my spatula than ‘poured’ to cover the bottom. My concerns were totally needless.

I had a taste, and the cake was perfect. It was light, fluffy and not too sweet – I didn’t use all of the 3/4 cup of sugar/cinnamon mixture. I probably over-beat the batter a little with my electric beater but it didn’t do any harm.

Since this mornings cake was given away, I’m going to make another this afternoon with some more leftover apples. I’ll be doubling the batter, and will also try the butter + sugar topping.

This cake was so yummy and simple, that I ended up making it four times in one weekend — two were for my family of five and two I gave away! I had a bunch of Gala apples that I needed to use so it was perfect. It is easy to make, and my picky toddlers loved it. They even helped me make one and it’s a very kid-friendly dish to make because it’s simple and therefore not hard to mess up. It’s great served warm with a dollop of homemade whipped cream on top and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Next time I’d like to try a different kind of apple. Thanks, Elise, for another great recipe!! Your site is my “Go-to” source for quality recipes on foods of all kind.

Hi Elise, I know it’s been 7 years since you first posted this. But I want to make this into a cupcake. Do you think that can work or is the cake too soft to hold itself up?