Skip to footer

Autumn dessert: cinnamon sugar apple cake

This is a quick and easy coffee cake with delicious flavors from in-season apples.

|
The Pastry Chef's Baking
This is a delicious apple cake with a cinnamon sugar topping, perfect for an autumn dessert.

We're finally getting some fall weather in California, the heat wave appears to be over and the temperatures are finally dropping to the point where I might need to wear something over whatever sleeveless top I persist in wearing. So the fall-themed desserts continue.

I had the rest of the apples I'd gotten from our church friends to use and I went with this cinnamon sugar apple cake as it seemed like such a "fall" or autumn cake to make. Not to mention it was really quick to put together.

I didn't have a lot of apples left over so I skimped a little on how much I put into the cake. If you end up putting in more apples, just remember that fruit releases moisture into the cake during baking so you don't want to underbake this. Bake just long enough that the toothpick comes out clean when you poke the center. Otherwise, your cake might be gummy.

If you need a quick and easy coffee-cake-type cake, this is a good one to go with, especially when you use apples in season. It's safe to go with tart apples like Granny Smiths since the cake has a sugar topping so more tart apples would keep it from being too sweet. This had a fluffy, cakey texture and is what my mom would consider "good with coffee."

Cinnamon sugar apple cake
From The Pajama Chef

1-1/2 cups brown sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups chopped apples

For the topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9" x 13" pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, whisk brown sugar, oil, egg and buttermilk. Stir in baking soda and vanilla. Mix in flour until just combined and fold in apples. Do not overmix. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. In a small bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon and butter, mixing with a fork. Spread evenly over the batter. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted near the middle comes out clean or with a few crumbs. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Related post on The Pastry Chef's Baking: Snickerdoodle Apple Cobbler

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Autumn dessert: cinnamon sugar apple cake
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Food/Stir-It-Up/2016/1006/Autumn-dessert-cinnamon-sugar-apple-cake
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe