The Very Best Apple Crumb Cake

I hope you’re all doing well, staying safe and enjoying the time you’re spending with your family.

Today’s recipe is a total pick me up. Super soft, cinnamony (I’m going with this word, yes) and fit for any meal. I’m looking at you breakfast.

Making cake is not really my forte, as you probably know from the small number of cake recipes present on this blog. There are 2 reasons that motivate me to publish a cake recipe. The first one is, the cake has to be delicious. The second one is, it has to be easy to make.

This Apple Crumb recipe checks both of those boxes.

How to Make Apple Crumb Cake

Cake Batter Ingredients

To make this apple crumb, we’re going to need a couple of basic ingredients. Here it is:

• Flour : All purpose flour is the base of this cake. It makes for a soft and fluffy cake.
• Quick Oats: adds depth to your cake batter and improves the texture.
• Baking Powder and Baking Soda : standard ingredients in baking that help your cake rise and get fluffy.
• Ground Cinnamon: apples and cinnamon is all I’m going to say.
• Light Brown Sugar: brown sugar is a dream companion of apples and cinnamon. It has more flavor than granulated sugar.
• Eggs: Another crucially important ingredient that adds both moisture and structure to the cake.
• Honey: Adds more natural sweetness to your cake and helps lighten the batter.
• Softened Butter: it’s the best fat you can use when making cake. The reason why we’re using softened butter is because we are going to beat with the sugar to make it very light and airy. This will make for a very light cake.
• Lemon juice: the acidity in lemon juice reacts to the baking soda and makes for a very fluffy cake.
• Milk : Will make your cake batter a lot lighter.

Cake Topping

• Apples: I used good old McIntosh apples to make my apple crumb cake. You can use any kind of apples you enjoy as far as I’m concerned.
• Granola: You can make your own crumble, sure. I aim to make your life a lot easier. Go for good quality granola, I chose one that has cranberries, because I love cranberries. Your favorite granola will make a great topping.

The Steps

As for any other cake recipe, you want to have one bowl for dry ingredients and another one for wet ingredients. Fun fact: in baking, sugar is a wet ingredient. 

To the first bowl, add flour, oats, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder. Whisk and Set aside. To the second bowl, add your softened butter and sugar. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, honey, lemon juice and milk.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and carefully stir until everything is well combined.

Note: Your cake batter will be a little thick, just like a pancake batter.

Line a loose-bottom cake pan with parchment paper. Or if you have a non-stick one, rub the inside of it with butter and lightly dust with flour.

Pour 3/4 (75%) of your batter into the prepared pan. Arrange your apple on top of the batter then add the remaining cake batter on top of the apples. Top with granola.

Bake for 20 minutes @ 375F, then lower the temperature to 325F and bake for another 40 minutes. Allow the cake to cool down before removing from the pan and cutting.

Note: This cake is best served warm, with a generous scoop of vanilla ice-cream. 

The Recipe :