Homemade Apple Cake

Ingredients for Homemade Apple Cake

How can fresh apples, cinnamon, and walnuts stirred together with a handful of pantry ingredients turn into this deliciously moist apple cake? They might just create the best apple cake you’ll ever eat. Here is what each ingredient brings to the party:

Butter: Adds flavor and tenderness to the cake. To be sure it’s soft enough to mix well in the cake batter, leave it on your counter for about 30 minutes to soften. Or, if you’re in a hurry, unwrap a stick of butter and place it in on a microwavable plate Microwave on very low (20%) about 1 minute or just until it’s softened but not at all melted.

Sugar: Sugar not only lends sweetness to the cake, bringing out the flavor of the spices, but also adds tenderness to the structure.

Eggs: The protein in the eggs help the cake to have a sturdy structure that doesn’t deflate when it cools. They also add lift to the batter, as the air beaten into them lightens the batter.

Flour: Is the backbone of cake, giving it structure.

Baking Soda: It gives the batter the rise, creating cake with a porous structure with great volume and texture.

Cinnamon: Ground cinnamon is used to flavor the cake with a sweet, spicy flavor that marries well with the apples.

Salt: Added for flavor and to bring out the other flavors of the cake.

Apples: Add sweetness, flavor, and moistness to this cake. Shredding them gives apple flavor to each and every bite.

Walnuts: Add flavor and crunch to the cake, making it a wild adventure for your mouth. Not a fan of walnuts, feel free to substitute chopped almonds or pecans or skip them all together! The apple-cinnamon flavor of this cake will still be just as delicious.

Ice Cream: The dairy flavor of ice cream gives the cinnamon in this recipe the spotlight. And serving cold ice cream with warm cake creates a comforting sweet treat.

How to Make Homemade Apple Cake

We’ll show you just how easy it is to make this simple and foolproof it is to make this cake. This is a one-bowl recipe, making it easy to prep and to clean up! Follow the recipe for all the specific instructions, and you’ll be diving into this amazing dessert in no time:

Prep the Pan

Spray your cake pan with baking spray with flour. This one step spray does the work of greasing the pan and dusting it with flour. This ensures your cake will come out easily from the pan.

Mix the Ingredients

Beat the butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Finally, stir in the apples and walnuts then spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake and Cool

Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the hot cake in the pan 10 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and let it cool another 10 minutes on a cooling rack before serving.

Top and Enjoy

Scoop ice cream onto servings of the warm cake. Use vanilla or cinnamon ice cream to enhance the flavors of the cake. The juxtaposition of the warm cake with the cold ice cream makes for a very comforting and scrumptious treat.

How to Store Homemade Apple Cake

We love this cake when it’s freshly baked, but if you find yourself with leftovers, they would make a sweet treat the next day. Store any remaining cake tightly covered in the refrigerator up to 3 days. Reheat a serving of this cake by uncovering it and placing it on a microwavable plate. Cover and microwave on medium-high (70%), 30 seconds to 1 minute or until warm.

We don’t recommend freezing this cake, as the cinnamon flavor can be lost, and the shredded apple can become watery during the freezing and thawing steps.

Other Desserts Using Fresh Apples

If you find yourself with a generous bag of apples from the orchard or love the way apple desserts are a perfect way of getting more fruit throughout the day, try one of these other fantastic apple desserts:

Dutch Apple Pie is a top-rated pie recipe that has a traditional flaky pastry bottom crust, but the sweet, spiced apple filling is topped with a brown sugar crumble instead of a crust.

Apple Pie Cake will please pie lovers and cake lovers at the same time. This clever recipe takes the best of both treats to create a dessert that appeals to those from either camp.

Caramel Apple Bars have the rich and creamy flavors of the classic candy layered between oat streusel for irresistible bars that feed a crowd.