Buying a bag of Granny Smiths with grand visions of becoming a healthy snack person, only to watch them rapidly approach their expiration date, is exactly what led to this caramel apple coffee cake on a Tuesday morning. Drowning those apples in brown sugar, sour cream, and store-bought caramel sauce counts as a genuinely reasonable solution to avoiding food waste.
Eating cake for breakfast turns into a slippery slope, though calling it coffee cake forces society to accept it without argument. A previous attempt at eating a plain apple for breakfast once ended at a drive-thru ten minutes later, which makes this an actual win for personal growth. Here is exactly how I do it.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- It justifies cake before noon. Fruit in the batter means this basically counts as eating a salad.
- You cannot mess up the moisture. Sour cream and oil keep this fall apple coffee cake impossibly tender even after a few extra minutes in the oven.
- Store-bought caramel is highly encouraged. Standing over a bubbling pot of molten sugar never becomes a requirement here.
- It masks the smell of whatever got burned yesterday. The cinnamon and nutmeg situation beats any overpriced candle.
Tools You’ll Need
Nothing fancy, I promise.
- 9-inch springform pan This makes getting the cake out a breeze, but a regular square pan works if you do not mind serving out of the dish.
- Mixing bowls. One large, one small, and maybe a tiny one for the streusel.
- A whisk or fork. An electric mixer never becomes a requirement for this caramel apple coffee cake recipe.
Ingredients
For the Streusel
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar – The backbone of any respectable apple crumb cake topping.
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour – Just standard flour, nothing wild.
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon – Do not skimp here, it is doing the heavy lifting.
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter – Melted, because cutting cold butter into flour is a workout I did not sign up for.
- 2 tablespoons salted caramel sauce – Yes, we are putting caramel right into the crumb topping.
For the Coffee Cake
- 2 cups all-purpose flour – Spoon and level it so you do not end up with a brick.
- 1 teaspoon baking powder & 1/2 teaspoon baking soda – Check your expiration dates, I once made a very flat cake because I ignored mine.
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt – To balance out all the sugar.
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg – The holy trinity of fall spices that turns this into a proper apple cinnamon caramel cake.
- 1 cup light brown sugar – Pack it in the cup like you mean it.
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil – This is the secret to a super moist cake that stays soft for days.
- 2 large eggs – Beaten, preferably at room temperature if you remember (I usually forget).
- 8 ounces sour cream – Full fat, please. You can learn more about sour cream fat content if you are curious, but just trust me on the full fat.
- 2 medium Granny Smith apples – Peeled and chopped. Tart apples hold their shape and do not turn to mush in the oven.
- 2 tablespoons salted caramel sauce – For drizzling, plus extra for serving because obviously.
How To Make Caramel Apple Coffee Cake
Do not let the multiple layers intimidate you, you are essentially just dumping things into bowls and stirring.
- Prep the pan: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with nonstick spray. If you forget the spray, you will be eating this cake straight out of the pan with a spoon, which I have done and highly recommend.
- Make the streusel: In a small bowl, combine all the streusel ingredients except the caramel with a fork until crumbly. Set it aside and try your hardest not to eat the raw butter-sugar clumps.
- Mix the dry ingredients: In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and brown sugar. If you have some lumps in your brown sugar, just smash them with your spoon, nobody is judging you.
- Add the wet ingredients: In a small bowl, stir together the oil, sour cream, and eggs. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour in the wet, and gently stir until just a few streaks of flour remain. Overmixing is the enemy of a tender crumb.
- Fold in the apples: Gently fold in the chopped apples. If your pieces are a little uneven because your knife skills are questionable, the cake will still bake up fine.
- Layer it up: Spoon half the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with half the streusel and drizzle with the caramel sauce. Spread the remaining batter on top and finish with the rest of the streusel. It might look messy, but the oven fixes everything.
- Bake and cool: Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let it cool for 15 minutes before drizzling with more caramel, otherwise the sauce will just melt into a sad puddle.
♥ The Misfit Tips!
- Never skip peeling the apples. Leaving the skins on once felt like chewing on wet paper in the middle of a soft cake.
- Use store-bought caramel. A jar of good salted caramel saves the sanity of anyone making a caramel apple crumb cake on a whim.
- Try the yogurt swap. Plain full-fat yogurt substitutes for sour cream, though Greek yogurt once produced a noticeably denser result.
Make it yours
- Pecan version. You fold chopped pecans into the streusel for extra crunch alongside the caramel.
- Extra caramel version. You drizzle a second layer of caramel between the batter layers for an even gooier apple cinnamon caramel cake.
Perfect Pairings
This apple crumb cake suits two specific pairings particularly well.
- A scoop of vanilla bean ice cream works well for pivoting this from breakfast to dessert.
- A lazy Sunday morning calls for exactly this kind of bake to impress houseguests without waking up at dawn.
How to Store
❤
- Fridge. Up to four days in an airtight container, though the fridge tends to pull moisture out of baked goods.
- Freezer. Up to two months before adding the final caramel drizzle.
- Reheat. Ten to fifteen seconds in the microwave brings back a soft, warm bite.
- Storage note. Drizzling the final caramel sauce over the whole cake before storing turns the streusel soggy, so drizzling per slice works best.
Caramel Apple Coffee Cake
This caramel apple coffee cake proves that a bag of forgotten Granny Smiths can turn into a genuinely impressive fall bake with almost no advance planning. This caramel apple coffee cake recipe layers a double caramel streusel around a tender, spiced apple batter, delivering everything a proper caramel apple crumb cake should taste like. Whether served at a lazy Sunday brunch or dressed up as an apple cinnamon caramel cake with extra drizzle, this fall apple coffee cake earns a permanent spot in the regular rotation.
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350°. Spray the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a small bowl, combine all of the streusel ingredients except caramel with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and brown sugar. In a small bowl, stir together the oil, sour cream, and eggs. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, then pour in the wet ingredients. Gently stir until a few streaks of flour remain. Gently fold in the apples.
- Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of the streusel and drizzle with caramel sauce. Spread the remaining batter over the streusel. Sprinkle with the remaining streusel.
- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes. Drizzle with salted caramel sauce before serving.
- Cut into slices and serve. Store leftovers, covered, at room temperature for up to 4 days.