Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake
This Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake is the perfect fall bake, with tender buttery cake layered with warm spiced apples and a thick brown sugar streusel. It's finished with a caramel drizzle that settles into every crack and crevice on top. Baked in a simple 8x8 pan, this cozy coffee cake fills the kitchen with the smell of apples and cinnamon and is perfect with a cup of coffee on a crisp fall morning.
Servings: 9 servings
Ingredients
Apple Filling
- 2 large Honeycrisp or Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped into small pieces
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 and ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- 1 tablespoon flour
Streusel
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 and ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted cold butter, cut into cubes
Cake
- ½ cup milk
- 1 and ½ teaspoons white vinegar
- 1 and ¾ cup all purpose flour
- 1 and ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Caramel Icing
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 3-4 tablespoons heavy cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ cup powdered sugar, sifted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Spray an 8x8 inch baking pan with non-stick spray and line with parchment to easily remove the coffee cake from the pan.
Apple Filling
- Add the chopped apples to a small bowl with the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and flour. Mix to coat the apples and set aside.
Streusel
- Add the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt to a bowl and mix well. Add the cold cubed butter to the bowl and use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour mixture. Keep turning the bowl to work the butter into the flour until you have pea sized pieces. Do not over work as you want larger pieces of butter to form the crumb topping. Put this in the refrigerator so the butter stays cold and you get a nice crumb topping when this bakes.
Cake
- Combine the milk and vinegar together and let sit while preparing the other ingredients. The mixture will curdle but this is exactly what we want.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, use a hand or stand mixer to cream the room temperature butter with the sugar. Mix on high speed until light and fluffy for about 2-4 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at time to the creamed butter, beating well to combine. Add the vanilla extract.
- Mix in half of the flour along with half of the milk mixture into the creamed butter and then repeat with the remain flour and milk mixing until everything is just combined and no streaks of flour remain.
Assembling the Cake
- Add half of the cake batter to the prepared pan and use a spatula to smooth into the corners.
- Add all of the apples on top of the batter. Add half of the streusel mixture on top of the apples.
- Spread the remaining batter over the apples and streusel. Carefully smooth into an even layer using a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining streusel topping on top.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire cooling rack for at least 30 minutes before serving. Once the coffee cake has cooled add the glaze.
Glaze
- In a small pan melt the butter. Stir in the brown sugar and continue to stir until the sugar melts into the butter and is smooth.
- Add the 3 tablespoons of heavy cream and continue to stir until the mixture begins to simmer.
- When mixture is slightly bubbling remove from heat and whisk in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Continue to stir until combined and add the additional tablespoon of cream if needed. Drizzle glaze over the top of the coffee cake and serve.