Caramel Apple Cake Recipe (Cinnamon Topping)
- Preparation 20 min
- Cooking 45 min
- Servings 8 to 10
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍯 Pour the warm caramel over and watch the table go quiet!
It sinks into the splits on top before setting up just slightly. Underneath, the crumb is wet, full of apple pieces, with a cinnamon layer that melted right into it while it baked. And the best part? There is no mixer in this recipe. Two bowls, a wooden spoon, forty-five minutes in the oven, and you pull out a dessert nobody will believe took an hour. Eight servings, enough caramel to spoon more over every slice, and I guarantee nobody stops at one!
🥛 Why it is still moist three days later
Oil and Greek yogurt, no creamed butter. Butter is roughly 15 % water that cooks off in the oven, while oil is 100 % fat and stays liquid even straight out of the fridge. It coats the flour better, keeps gluten from developing, and holds the moisture in for days. The yogurt adds acidity on top of that, which wakes up the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb. Most apple cake recipes do one or the other. This one does both.
⏱️ The sauce takes two minutes, and it keeps
Brown sugar caramel hardens as it cools, which is just the fat setting up. Ten to fifteen seconds in the microwave brings it right back, glossy and pourable. The molasses in brown sugar carries invert sugars that keep crystals from reforming, so it comes out of the fridge without drama. That said, it builds in two minutes flat. You may as well make it while the cake cools on the rack.
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🌾 Coat the apples in the dry ingredients
That is why the sugar goes in with the flour from the start instead of being creamed with fat. You drop your diced apple into the dry mix and stir just enough to dust it. The starch coating thickens the batter around the fruit and soaks up the juice that runs out as it bakes. The result: your apple stays spread through the crumb instead of collecting at the bottom.
🥄 Stop mixing before you feel like stopping
Wooden spoon, no mixer. The second you stop seeing dry flour, you are done. Every extra stroke develops gluten, and gluten is what turns a moist cake into a rubbery one. The batter is allowed to look a little rough in the bowl. It evens out in the oven.
🍎 Cortland, and not just out of habit
Cortland. Firm, slightly tart, and slow to brown once cut, which matters while it sits in the dry bowl waiting on your wet ingredients. Empire and Lobo do the same job. A mealy apple, on the other hand, vanishes into the crumb.
🍯 Brown sugar is what keeps the caramel from turning grainy
A white sugar caramel can crystallize on you and give you a sandy sauce. Brown sugar carries between 4.5 and 6.5 % molasses, rich in invert sugar, and those sugars refuse to line up into crystals. That is what lets you make this sauce with no thermometer, no wet pastry brush, no stress. You stir, it boils, it simmers two minutes, it is done.
⏱️ Trust the toothpick, not the clock
Forty to forty-five minutes in my oven. Yours is not mine, and an oil cake looks wet longer than a butter cake does. Start testing at forty minutes. Clean toothpick means done. Batter clinging to it means five more minutes, then test again.
📅 Make-ahead
The whole cake can be made the day before. Bake it, cool it, and keep it covered in the fridge in a labeled container. It is arguably better the next day, once the cinnamon has settled down into the crumb. You can also peel and dice the apple in the morning, keep it in a sealed container, and measure your dry ingredients into the bowl ahead of time. The caramel sauce can be made ahead too. It firms up in the fridge, that is just the fat setting, but ten to fifteen seconds in the microwave brings it back glossy and pourable. It keeps two weeks in a sealed jar. That said, it takes two minutes in a saucepan, so if you have the choice, build it while your people are finishing dinner. That gets dessert to the table still warm without you having spent the evening at the stove.
✅ What to serve with my caramel apple cake
Warm, with the caramel poured on at the last second and the rest in a small pitcher on the table. It needs nothing else. If you are building a fall dessert spread, set it next to my apple crisp and my homemade applesauce. For something dressier, my apple Bundt cake with ginger cider takes over. And if it is the cinnamon topping that got you, go look at my coffee cake, which plays the same idea.
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Cake
- 1 1/2 cups (210 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp (10 ml) baking powder
- 1/2 tsp (2 ml) baking soda
- 1/4 tsp (1 ml) salt
- 3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup Cortland apple (about 1 large), peeled and diced
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) canola oil
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) plain Greek yogurt
Cinnamon topping
- 1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar
- 1 tsp (5 ml) ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) butter, melted
Caramel sauce
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (250 ml) dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) 35 % cooking cream
- 1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp (1 ml) salt
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Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C). Butter a 9-inch (23 cm) round pan and line it with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.
- Add the diced apple and stir briefly to coat it in the dry mixture.
- In another bowl, whisk the eggs, vanilla, canola oil and yogurt, just enough to break up the yolks.
- Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ones and fold gently with a wooden spoon, until barely combined. Pour the batter into the pan.
- Make the cinnamon topping. Stir the sugar, cinnamon and melted butter together until crumbly and damp, then scatter it over the batter.
- Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Set the cake on a rack and let it cool completely.
- Make the caramel sauce. In a saucepan, combine the butter, brown sugar, cream, vanilla and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, then count 1 minute of simmering, still stirring, until smooth and slightly thickened.
- Take off the heat and let it cool to warm. The sauce thickens as it cools.
- Pour the warm caramel over the cooled cake. Serve with the rest of the caramel on the side, so everyone can add more to their slice.
Liquid fat, and that is where oil beats butter. Butter is about 15 % water that cooks off in the oven, while oil is 100 % fat and stays liquid even cold. It coats the flour better, keeps gluten from developing, and holds moisture in for days longer. Add Greek yogurt on top of that: the acidity reacts with the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb further. That pair does all the work in this recipe.
Two things, and neither one is the caramel. First, do not overbake it. Start testing with a toothpick at forty minutes, because an oil cake looks underdone longer than a butter cake and it is easy to dry it out chasing a look. Second, pour the sauce over a fully cooled cake. Warm cake absorbs caramel straight into the crumb and turns heavy. Cool cake lets it sit on top and run into the cracks, which is where you want it.
You could, and the caramel sauce would still be worth making. But the whole point of this one is the oil and yogurt combination, and a boxed mix has its own fat and leavening figured out for you. The from-scratch version here takes two bowls and a wooden spoon, no mixer, maybe twenty minutes of actual work. That is a small price for a cake that stays moist for days.
Yes, but without the sauce. Cool it completely, wrap it well, and it keeps two months in the freezer. Thaw at room temperature and make the caramel fresh when you serve. In the fridge it holds three or four days easily. That is the theory anyway, because at my place it has never lasted that long.
Warm, with the caramel poured over and the rest in a small pitcher on the table. For a fall spread, serve it with my apple crisp and my homemade applesauce. For a dressier evening, look at my apple Bundt cake with ginger cider, and for the same cinnamon topping idea, my coffee cake.
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