Caramel Harvest Apple Cake
This Caramel Harvest Apple Cake is a perfect fall dessert! This is a caramel cake with a fresh apple mixture baked in, and topped with a whipped cream cheese icing, then drizzled with caramel sauce. Oh my.
Who doesn’t love caramel?
Caramel Cake?
With apples?
Um, yes please.
I was inspired my Dr. Maya Angelou’s Caramel Cake that I saw on Martha Stewart for this cake. But I decided to use my Apple Breakfast Coffee Cake recipe as the base, and just add my caramel sauce to the batter.
This is a rich, decadent, delicious cake. I prefer it without the icing, but my family loved the icing! (the icing is amazing, I’m just not a ‘a-lot-a-icing’ kind a gal) Either way, it’s fabulous and perfect for a Thanksgiving get together.
Caramel Harvest Apple Cake
This Caramel Harvest Apple Cake is a perfect fall dessert! This is a caramel cake with a fresh apple mixture baked in, and topped with a whipped cream cheese icing, then drizzled with caramel sauce. Oh my.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 cake 1x
Ingredients
Caramel Sauce
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 1/2 cup butter
Apple Mix
- 3 apples (I use MacIntosh)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Caramel Cake
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup to 1/3 Caramel Sauce (I used 1/3 cup)
Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese (half an eight ounce block)
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 – 3/4 cup whipping cream
Instructions
Caramel Sauce
- Make the caramel sauce first so it has time to cool to room temperature.
- In a sauce pan melt the butter, then add the brown sugar and whipping cream.
- Stir over low heat until the sauce thickens.
- Set aside to cool (or put it in the fridge to cook quickly).
Apple Mix
- Peel and cut up the apples into small chunks (about 1cm cubes).
- Add sugar and cinnamon to the apples, and mix well.
- Let rest for at least 15 minutes, stirring often so the sugar turns kind of syrupy.
- Set aside, it’s time to make the cake batter.
Caramel Cake
- Prepare a Bundt pan with butter and flour, or a cooking spray like Pam. Set aside.
- In a mixer beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
- Add eggs one at a time. Mix well.
- Add vanilla.
- In a separate bowl combine flour and baking powder.
- To the butter mixture, add the flour mix in 3 parts, alternating with the milk. So add 1/3 of the flour mix, half of the milk, 1/3 of the flour mix, the rest of the milk, the rest of the flour. Mix well.
- Add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the cooled caramel sauce. Mix well.
- Put half of the cake batter into the Bundt pan, covering the bottom of the pan.
- Give the apple mixture one final stir, and add to the cake in a layer covering the first layer of batter.
- Cover the apples with the other half of the batter.
- Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
- Set the cake aside to cool for at least 10 minutes, then remove from the pan onto a serving plate.
Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
- Whip the whipping cream into stiff peaks. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl beat cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth.
- Then fold together the whipped cream and cream cheese mix.
Putting the Caramel Cake all together:
- After you have removed the caramel cake from the pan, wait until the cake has cooled before serving or icing.
- The frosting recipe makes a lot of frosting, so you could cut the amount in half. I think the icing should actually be used only as a compliment to the cake, as too much overpowers the caramel flavour. You can ice the cake with it, or serve it in dollops on top of slices of the cake.
- Then drizzle the cake with some of the remaining caramel sauce!
More Delicious Apple Desserts:
This looks amazing! I am a fellow Improv Challenge participant and of course one of your followers.
http://www.itsybitsypaperblog.com
Wow. That looks amazing. Anything with the word apple or caramel or cake…. I’ll eat and love every bite!
Looks wonderfully delicious! I’ve added Caramel Apple Scones #53.
I LOVE your recipe! Thanks for participating in THE IMPROV COOKING CHALLENGE!! I can’t wait to see what you do next month with Pumpkin and Cream Cheese. —Sheryl—
Oh.My.Goodness. This looks amazing…YUM! That icing would probably be my favorite part!
New follower here! This looks delish! I am hopping by from the Improv Challenge (I’m #30)
That looks pretty amazing!
This sounds fantastic! Yum.
Looks and sounds fantastic!
If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to check out my Improv Cooking Challenge recipe: Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies.
Lisa~~
Cook Lisa Cook
That breakfast cake sounds wonderful. All of that frosting and caramel sends it to the stratosphere!
I’d love a slice, please! I bet this tastes wonderful, esp. with using whipping cream. Can’t go wrong there. 🙂
Cheers,
Tracy Screaming Sardine
My goodness, your cake looks so yummy! I love that you used a whipped cream/cream cheese frosting instead a traditional buttercream or a glaze. Great recipe!
That’s good look and awesome posting. nice idea for recipes and this is yummy food
I am dying over all this apply yumminess!
I’m always ready to try a new apple cake recipe.
Mimi
Your cake looks fantastic!
This is awesome. I love apples and what you can bake them in. This recipe looks delicious! I can’t wait to get peeling to try it!
Mmm Mmmmmm…This looks AMAZING!! What a delicious fall dessert!
Sounds like fun with food. Your this dish looks amazing! I can never seem to make my recipe look pretty. Such a great one for the season.
Oh my gawsh! Yummers! Love the new blog look too!
Sounds like a lot of work and steps but from the looks of it, it was so worth it! 🙂
http://steaknpotatoeskindagurl.blogspot.com/2011/10/caramel-apple-marshmallow-dip-improv.html
This looks and sounds fantastic.
Decandent and delicious…mmmmm. Your photos are so wonderful!! I could definetly use some tips from you…if you ever have any to give away:) And PS- I’m intrigued by this improv recipe challange…I’d love to get involved…I think I may need to check it out!
Jessie B. @ Possible Baker
Yummi,great! Tried the cake today without the frosting and a slightly different caramel sauce and we all liked it a lot. Thanks for the recipe! Greetings from Germany 🙂
visiting from CSI Project- what a scrumptious looking cake!! oh my goodness- definitely bookmarking this to try later 😀
OMG! Looks so good, I have to try this receipe! 🙂
It looks so incredibly good!
Visiting from Positively Splendid’s link party 🙂
Another great looking recipe! YUM! We look forward to your chocolate recipes this week! 🙂
Mackenzie from the Iron Chef Mom Team 🙂