Description
A chunky apple, coconut cake that is studded with nuts and topped off with a brown sugar glaze that will satisfy any dessert craving.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Apple Cake
- 1 1/2 cups (149 g) all purpose flour, unbleached
- 1 1/2 cups (149 g) white whole wheat flour or 100% whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1 cup (236 ml) vegetable oil such as canola oil
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup (191 g) white sugar
- 1 cup (201 g) light brown sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups (241 g) pecans or (232 g) walnuts , toasted and rough chopped
- 3 cups (375 g) apples, peeled and chopped (roughly 1/4 inch dice)
- 3/4 cup (57 g) flaked coconut
Brown Sugar Glaze
- 1/2 cup (101 g) packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (115 g) butter, unsalted
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) heavy cream
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Prepare a 10-inch tube or bundt pan by greasing and flouring well or use a baking spray.
- Combine flours, baking soda, salt and set aside.
- CAKE: Place oil, eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and mix with a hand held mixer or stand mixer at medium speed. Add the flour mixture all at one and stir until just mixed together. Fold in nuts, apple and coconut. This is a very thick batter.
- Place the batter into the prepared baking pan and spread the batter evenly with a spatula. Bake for 1 hour and 25 to 30 minutes. Test the cake for doneness with a toothpick. This is a very moist cake so testing for doneness can be tricky. I usually baked my cake for the longer time (1 1/2+ hours) but every oven is different and the moisture from the apples can vary changing the cooking time.
- GLAZE: During the final minutes of baking time make the brown sugar glaze. Place all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a full boil. Allow to boil, stirring constantly, for two minutes. The glaze will become syrup like or thicker. Turn off the
- Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes. Turn out on desired cake plate and glaze while still warm.
Notes
- Tart apples, such as Granny Smith, work well with this recipe.
- Sweeter apples tend to make the cake too sweet in my taste.
- When making the glaze, apple cider can be substituted for the heavy cream but needs to be cooked a bit longer for syrup consistency.
- It makes an excellent tasting glaze but does tend to be thinner.
- This cake can definitely stand alone without the icing.
- The glaze just takes it over the top!
- I like using a standard 10-inch tube pan because the craggy top that is formed during baking is my favorite part.
- It has a nice crunchy texture that I love and stand the cake up accordingly.
- The cake would be much more attractive cooked in a bundt pan and placed upside down on the serving platter.
- Taste before beauty in my case.
- The top picture is the recipe halved and baked in a 9-inch cake pan.
- It took about 50 minutes to bake and still seemed a bit moist in the center.
- The tube pan version is probably better for cooking the center of the cake but sometimes you don’t want to make a huge cake because you might be tempted to eat all of it!
- You could probably halve the cake and still put it in a regular size tube pan, the cake will be shorter which is fine.
- I used a very large egg or two small eggs for half of the 3 eggs for the halved recipe.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour 30 mins
- Category: Cake
- Cuisine: Southern
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 510