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Bursting with apples and spices and topped with cream cheese frosting, this Apple Spice Cake will become your favorite fall dessert. Easy to make and completely delicious!
For more apple desserts, try my Fried Apples, Snickerdoodle Apple Cobbler, and Classic Apple Pie.
Table of Contents
About The Recipe
This cake is a simple apple spice cake, and I added a ton of chopped Granny Smith apples for texture and tartness.
I like topping this cake with cream cheese frosting spiked with a little cinnamon, but it would be delicious with vanilla buttercream too. If you want to get extra fancy, you could sprinkle extra cinnamon on top, some more diced apples – a combination of Granny Smith and Gala would be pretty with all the colors, or even candied pecans.
No matter how you dress it up, this Apple Cake is a comforting and tasty dessert you’ll want to make again and again!
Ingredients
- Dry ingredients – Flour, baking powder, granulated sugar, and brown sugar.
- Wet ingredients – Butter, eggs, vanilla extract.
- Spices – Ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg.
- Granny Smith apples – You can use any variety of apples you like. I prefer the tartness and crispness of the granny smith.
- Frosting – Cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, milk.
How To Make Apple Spice Cake
Get a detailed list of ingredients & instructions in the recipe card below.
- Preheat your oven and grab a 9-inch x 13-inch baking dish. Preheating is essential to making sure your cake bakes and rises evenly.
- Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- Beat together the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients. The batter will be very thick.
- Fold in chopped apples.
- Spread the batter into a baking dish and bake at 350℉ for 40 minutes.
- Cool for at least an hour before frosting.
Best Apples for Cake
When it comes to baking cakes with apples, the type of apple you choose can make a big difference in texture and flavor. I like to use apples that provide a well-rounded flavor profile with both tartness and sweetness, and that tend to hold their shape well, like these:
- Granny Smith
- Honeycrisp
- Fuji
- Braeburn
- Jonagold
- Gala
Golden Delicious are also great for baking because they are softer and tend to melt into the cake, which can also be delicious.
Storage
Cover the cake and store in the refrigerator for up to 3-4 days. If you opt for buttercream frosting instead of the cream cheese frosting, it can be left at room temperature.
To freeze, wrap individual slices in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Try These Apple Desserts Next
- Microwave Apple Crisp in a Mug
- Apple Blackberry Crumble
- Crockpot Apple Butter
- Apple Cinnamon Muffins
- Slow Cooker Apple Cider
- Cinnamon Apple Bundt Cake
Apple Spice Cake
Ingredients
Apple Spice Cake:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter melted
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 Granny Smith apples diced (about 2 ½ cups)
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 to 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
Apple Spice Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9-inch x 13-inch pan with non-stick cooking spray.
- In a medium mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until combined. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter, sugar, and brown sugar for 1 to 2 minutes until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla and beat to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 2 additions, mixing until just combined after each addition. The batter will be thick.
- Use a wooden spoon or a spatula to stir in the apples. Transfer the cake batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly.
- Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Carefully remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for about an hour, or until about room temperature.
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon until smooth. Add milk as needed, until desired consistency is reached.
- Spread frosting over the top of the cake in an even layer. Sprinkle with more ground cinnamon if desired.
Is it possible to substitute the chunky apples with applesauce? And if so, how much would you recommend? OR could I omit the apples entirely and use some kind of apple spice? Perhaps this is a trial and error?
Applesauce generally will have a lot more liquid than just apples. If you want to use applesauce, maybe omit the eggs, or at least one egg. It will be trial and error; sorry, .I haven’t tried this with applesauce!
Could you use nuts instead of apples?
Sure you could add nuts. But it’s an apple cake, so apples are necessary for the recipe to work properly.
This sounds so yummy. I would like to make it as a layer cake though. Would this recipe make enough batter, or should I double it? Thanks!
It’s a sheet cake, so it probably wouldn’t be enough for a layer cake. I haven’t tried anything other than the sheet cake though so I can’t say how it would turn out.
I made this cake for visiting family a couple days ago. I made it exactly as written except I did not use the cinnamon in the frosting. THIS WAS YUMMY. I would make it again, or give as gift, or bring to a potluck, etc. We fought over the last slice.