Irish Apple Cake
This is an incredibly easy cake because all you need to do is whip everything up in one bowl and bake it. Because it’s packed with fresh apples, the cake is also beautifully moist and tender.
My Irish Apple Cake is packed with Granny Smith apples in soft, warmly spiced and sweet bites of cake that’s baked beneath a layer of buttery crumble topping. Are you drooling yet? The cake itself is soft and fluffy, yet still pretty moist and rich. It’s the best of both worlds… And SO easy to make!
There’s only about 15 minutes of prep time. After that, you just pop it into the oven and wait for the most intoxicating aroma to fill the house!
While you can easily make this cake for dessert with a scoop of ice cream on the side, it will also be lovely as a breakfast treat with your coffee. The crumble topping and rich consistency are both pretty reminiscent of a coffee cake combined with my skillet apple cake!
Best Apple To Use
- The absolute best apples to use for Irish Apple Cake are Granny Smith apples! They create a perfect balance of sweet cake and slightly sour juicy apples. The combination of sweet and tart makes a beautiful dessert or just a companion for a cup of tea.
- If you just don’t like the tartness of Granny Smith apples, you can choose to go with a sweet apple instead. Use something bright and juicy like Honeycrisp or Gala apples. You can even experiment and go half and half by combining sweet and tart apples.
Tips for the Best Irish Apple Cake:
- Try to keep the apple pieces uniform is size and don’t make them too small. You want a nice bite of apple with the cake.
- Make the batter in a biscuit making style. This will give you a nice rustic texture. Also, coating apple pieces in the flour mixture first will integrate them better into the batter so when the juices are released, they’ll soak right into the cake!
- I highly recommend using a 9-inch springform baking pan to bake the cake in. It will be so much easier to take the cake out of the pan this way. You can, of course, use any tall sized baking dish and simply cut the cake out slice by slice.
- When making crumple topping, stir together dry ingredients first and then, pour in the melted butter and carefully fold and cut the mixture with a large fork. You’ll want to be careful so you don’t over-mix it! The texture should look like crumbs, not paste.
- Serve Irish Apple Cake with any topping you wish: custard sauce, caramel sauce, whiskey butter sauce, or straight up.
- Do a toothpick test to check if the cake is baked through: insert a dry toothpick into the very center of the cake and pull it out. It the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done. If the toothpick comes out with some unbaked batter on the end, it needs more bake time.
Storing Recommendation:
- Storing on the counter: You can store this apple cake at room temperature for a couple of days. Just make sure to keep it airtight container.
- Remember that, environment in your house (temperatures and humidity) will affect how long you can keep the cake at room temperature. For example, shelf life at room temperature is much shorter in a humid climate.
- Storing in the refrigerator: You can store the cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator for longer, about a week.
- Reheating: you can simply warm each slice up in a microwave for a few seconds.
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Irish Apple Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Apple Cake Batter:
- 3-4 Granny Smith apples peeled, cored, diced
- 3 cup cake flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter cold
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup whole milk
Crumble Topping:
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter melted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Peel, core, and dice the apples.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and spices and whisk well.
- Grate or shave cold butter into the bowl with flour and cut the butter in the flour until it's well incorporated and starting to resemble coarse crumbs.
- Add diced apples and mix well until evenly incorporated.
- Whisk eggs, milk, and vanilla extract together, pour it into the bowl with flour and apples as you're mixing. Keep mixing until everything is evenly incorporated.
- Grease a 9-inch springform and spread the apple cake batter in it evenly.
Crumble Topping:
- In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, and flour. Mix well until all ingredients are incorporated evenly.
- Pour in melted butter and carefully fold and cut it in with a large fork. You will want to be careful so you don’t over-mix. Crumble topping should look like large crumbs and not paste.
- Spread the crumble topping over the batter in the baking pan.
- Bake the apple cake for 45-50 minutes. (Remember to do the toothpick test in the center of the cake to make sure it's done.)
Notes
- Storing on the counter: You can store this apple cake at room temperature for a couple of days. Just make sure to keep it airtight container.
- Storing in the refrigerator: You can store the cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator for longer, about a week.
- Reheating: you can simply warm each slice up in a microwave for a few seconds.
Nutrition
Other Related Irish and Apple Recipes
Originally published on Will Cook For Smiles in March 2023.
All images and text ©Lyubov Brooke for ©Will Cook For Smiles. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
Thank you for your reply about cooling the cake. I made this cake and it tasted good but it crumbled when I cut it. What did I do wrong? It was a crumbly mess.
How long should you cool cake before removing from spring form pan?
I leave it out until it reaches room temperature, which usually takes about an hour. I hope you enjoy it!
I plan to make your cake later today. I have never used cake flour. I will try to find some at the store, but if I cannot, can regular all purpose flour do?
I hope I’m not to late! No you want to use a cake flour or make your own. To make your own take the 3 cups of flour and take 6 tablespoons back out then add 6 tablespoons of cornstarch or arrowroot flour to replace it and there you go.
Next time if you have a question that needs an immediate response you can send me a message on Facebook or Instagram because it sends me an alert.
It looks delicious. I want to make it for my girlfriend because she loves apples. Hope that she will love that.
Great recipe
What is cake flour please? I’m in Australia and haven’t heard of this? Tx
Hi Shelley,
Cake flour is lower in protein which means less gluten is formed as you mix the batter together and less gluten makes the cake have a softer fluffier texture.