Olivia Piepmeier

Fudgy Apple Cake

← Recipes

Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Categories: dessert fruit
Watercolor illustration of a slice of two-layer cake with the frosting covered edge on the right. The frosting is a light brown. The cake is darker brown with blobs of lighter brown (supposed to be apples).

inspired by King Arthur Baking

Ingredients

  • 140g AP Flour
  • 140g Golden Wheat Flour (or more AP, but I truly recommend this stuff that just got renamed from “White Whole Wheat”)
  • 270g sugar
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp diamond crystal salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ginger
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 113g butter, softened
  • 425g finely chopped apple
  • 43g boiled cider (this is a handy ingredient to have around. I’m almost certain you can make your own, just boil the hell out of some cider till it’s kinda syrupy)
  • 113g walnuts or pecans, diced (and toasted if you’re feeling fancy, but not required!)

frosting

  • 99g butter
  • 130g brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp diamond crystal salt
  • 57g milk OR 28g milk + 43g boiled cider
  • 190g powdered sugar, sifted
  • 3/4 tsp vanilla

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
  2. Lightly grease a 9” x 13” pan or two 8” round pans. Can’t decide? 9x13 will give you a thick top layer of frosting; round pans will let you have a nice layered look but there’s a chance it’ll look a bit more messy…at least..that’s what happens when I’m in charge.
  3. Mix all cake ingredients except the boiled cider, apples, and nuts in a large bowl. It’s possible to hand mix this but you’ll be happier if you use a mixer.
  4. As soon as it comes together and becomes uniformly crumbly, stop mixing!
  5. Add the apples, boiled cider, and nuts, and mix until the apples release some of their juice and the stiff mixture becomes a thick batter, somewhere between cookie dough and brownie batter in consistency. This will take some time.
  6. Spread the batter in the prepared pan(s), smoothing it with wet fingers. Remember, if you’re splitting it up into 2 pans, weigh them out!!
  7. Bake the cake for around 45 minutes for 9” x 13” pan or for around 38 minutes for two 8” round pans. A toothpick or paring knife inserted into the center should come out clean, or with just a few wet crumbs clinging to it. The temperature at the center will be about 205F. Apples release a lot of wetness so don’t be surprised if this takes longer! You don’t want it to be a gooey mess in the middle, so really make sure it’s done.
  8. Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a rack to cool a bit while you make the frosting. I do think it’s possible and even reasonable to do the frosting another day if you need to, you just can’t do the frosting ahead of time.

frosting

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium.
  2. Add brown sugar and salt and cook, stirring, until the sugar starts to melt and the mixture becomes fairly smooth. The visual cue you’re looking for, beyond smoothness, is a sudden lack of melted butter pooled atop the sugar.
  3. Add the milk and boiled cider, stir, and bring to a boil.
  4. Remove from heat and pour it into a bowl large enough to eventually accommodate the powdered sugar. Let the syrup cool in the bowl for 10 minutes.
  5. Sift the powdered sugar over the bowl.
  6. Add the vanilla extract.
  7. Whisk until everything is thoroughly combined. Work fast! The frosting stiffens up as it cools.
  8. Pour the warm frosting onto the cake(s), spreading it over the entire surface.

Thoughts

This is a dangerous cake. The combination of a cake that is almost more apples than cake and a frosting that is essentially brown sugar fudge is just chefs kiss. Other than chopping a lot of apples and making sure you don’t under cook the cake, it isn’t that complicated either! This cake requires me to practice restraint. In that sense, it’s probably best suited for a gathering so there will be little leftovers. A very respectable “cake for breakfast” cake!