Apple Fritter Cake is a soft apple filled cake, with a crispy sugar glaze! You’re favorite old fashioned doughnut in cake form!
Try my Apple Fritter Bread too!
So my husband refuses to eat breakfast for dinner. Like ever.
BUT he will eat dinner for breakfast. (????) Basically, no pancakes for dinner, no way, but Sesame Chicken for breakfast, yes please.
And quite honestly, I never really gave it much thought until our little guys came along…Kids historically LOVE breakfast for dinner. But I have to deprive my children this milestone of childhood because the husband puts his foot down. Oh, and also, anywhere that SELLS breakfast for dinner he will deny. iHop? Only before 11:00 am. A Diner? Drag him kicking and screaming. And don’t even mention Cracker Barrel. Sighhhhhhh.
BUT sometimes I like to trick him and serve breakfast for dessert…He doesn’t even know what’s happening.
I am basically a dessert wizard. Case in point…Apple Fritter Cake. Cake that derived from a breakfast food, shape-shifted into a cake, disguised as dessert.
How to Make Apple Fritter Cake
This apple cake cake is so soft and moist..loaded with apples and cinnamon.
Chop up a couple apples…
You’ll need about 2 cups of diced apples…
The trick for this cake is cooking your apples to make them soft and delicious.
Cook them up with some sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch and water…
Let your apples cool. The syrup will thicken up and it will be glorious.
Meanwhile make your cake batter. You’ll need to add some applesauce to your butter and sugar…
Add in some eggs and vanilla too. The batter will look a little odd, but it’s ok.
Next add in your dry ingredients…
And some Greek yogurt. Alternate them as you add them.
Yes, you could sub this for sour cream too!
Then spread half of the batter in a prepared 9×13.
Pour your delicious apple concoction up on top…
Then sprinkle some brown sugar and cinnamon on top of that.
Finish by spreading the remainder of your batter to cover the apples and a little more brown sugar.
Can you believe this is real life?
When your cake is baked, you need to poke it a little bit. Grab a butter knife and stab it 31 times. Exactly.
Then whip up a little glaze. It’s just a little powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla.
Then pour this over top of your holey-hot cake.
The glaze will coat the cake and sink in, leaving you with a crispy, sugary coating.
Let the heavens open up and sing to you now…
Let it cool a few minutes and then stick your face in it.
Or use a fork. Whatever.
This Apple Fritter Cake recipe was originally posted on my website in 2012. I have updated some of the photos and recipe.
Enjoy!
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Apple Fritter Cake
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 55 mins
- Yield: serves 12 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Breakfast
Description
This apple cake is easy to make and is just like the old fashioned donut!
Ingredients
Filling
- 2 cups peeled and large diced Granny Smith Apples (about 2 medium)
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons water
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Cake
- 1/3 cup butter, room temperature
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup Greek yogurt or sour cream
Glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
Filling
- In a medium saucepan combine apples, granulated sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch and water.
- Heat on medium heat for 5-6 minutes until apples soften and the liquid thickens. Set aside to cool.
- Mix the dark brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9×13 pan with nonstick spray. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment mix the butter and sugar together for 3 minutes until fluffy.
- Add the applesauce, vanilla, and eggs and mix on medium until combined, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- Add the dry mixture and the Greek yogurt in alternating parts, starting and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined.
- Spread 1/2 of the cake batter in the bottom of the prepared pan. Top with the apple mixture, spreading carefully to cover the batter. Then top with 2/3 of the brown sugar, sprinkling all over the apple mixture.
- Cover with the remaining batter and sprinkle the remaining 1/3 of the brown sugar all over the top.
- Bake 35-40 minutes, or until the center of the cake is set.
Glaze
- When the cake has only a few minutes left baking, prepare the glaze by mixing the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth.
- When cake is done, immediately poke holes in the cake using a butter knife, about 30 pokes.
- Pour the glaze over the top of the cake spreading to cover it completely. Let the glaze set up for about 20 minutes before serving.
Notes
Store airtight for up to 3 days
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 526
- Sugar: 53.4 g
- Sodium: 276.9 mg
- Fat: 21.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 78.4 g
- Protein: 7.3 g
- Cholesterol: 89.9 mg
It looks so good and I can’t wait to make it! I’m thinking of adding some walnuts to the recipe. Curious, had anyone tried this before? Whatcha think?
I think this could be fab!
Very heavy and dense. Too sweet too. ♀️
I made the recipe almost as written. I had a quart jar of apple pie filling that I canned a year ago that I used instead of cooking the apple mixture. I also used full-fat greek yogurt.
It was amazing! The cake was light and tender and it was moist. The applesauce in the batter is brilliant, since it intensifies the apple flavor.
The only thing I would change is to slightly increase the amount of cake batter. With a quart of filling, it overwhelmed the cake in a few spots. I might slightly decrease the glaze quantity, but I will still use the glaze.
The. Best. Made it today for a gathering and had people returning for 2nds and 3rds! Thank you for such a great recipe!
So glad you enjoyed!
I want to try this but do you grease and flour your pan?
The full recipe is in the recipe card at the bottom! I coat my 9×13 with nonstick spray as stated!
This cake was very difficult to make. The cake batter is very dense and sticky, so spreading it in the bottom of a pan sprayed with non-stick was problematic. Also, the filling seemed like not enough apples for a 9 x 13. That was spread even thinner. Those pictures of a cut piece of cake are misleading. Apples aren’t flowing out that way. I would try 3 or 4 cups of apples. When cooking down the apple filling there was not enough water and I had to add more because it would have burned otherwise. There is an incredible amount of sugar in this cake! People I served it to liked it but agreed with me that the glaze is overkill, considering the amount of sugar in the cake. We had it with vanilla bean ice cream and it was a good combination. It did taste nice, especially the apples and cinnamon, but more apples!
The dough is very dense and stiff, and will have a significant rise. It’s kind of hard to spread, it needs to be a bit wetter – either add more applesauce or another egg. Also the instructions need to be a bit clearer – mix the brown sugar cinnamon mix to the cooked apple mixture before you add to the top of the batter in the pan, and after you add the rest of the dough.
I found the batter to be so thick it was very hard to spread!sounded good, but very disappointed in the end result. Cake was very dry despite the yogurt. Needs more liquid to spread!
I had baked this cake before, and lost the recipe. I am so glad to have located it again because everyone who tried it loved it .
Can you freeze this cake?
Sure! Freeze it airtight!