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
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 cake 1x
Description
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.
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
- 1/2 of an 8oz package of cream cheese
- 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!
29 Comments
[email protected] Bitsy Paper
October 20, 2011 at 12:54 PMThis looks amazing! I am a fellow Improv Challenge participant and of course one of your followers.
http://www.itsybitsypaperblog.com
Nancy
October 20, 2011 at 12:54 PMWow. That looks amazing. Anything with the word apple or caramel or cake…. I’ll eat and love every bite!
Patty
October 20, 2011 at 2:21 PMLooks wonderfully delicious! I’ve added Caramel Apple Scones #53.
Lady Behind The Curtain
October 20, 2011 at 4:31 PMI 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—
Becca @ Crumbs and Chaos
October 20, 2011 at 4:55 PMOh.My.Goodness. This looks amazing…YUM! That icing would probably be my favorite part!
MrsFoxsSweets
October 20, 2011 at 5:45 PMNew follower here! This looks delish! I am hopping by from the Improv Challenge (I’m #30)
Carrie
October 20, 2011 at 7:22 PMThat looks pretty amazing!
Pup Fan
October 20, 2011 at 7:35 PMThis sounds fantastic! Yum.
Lisa~~
October 20, 2011 at 8:04 PMLooks 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
Kristen
October 20, 2011 at 8:52 PMThat breakfast cake sounds wonderful. All of that frosting and caramel sends it to the stratosphere!
Screaming Sardine
October 21, 2011 at 1:35 AMI’d love a slice, please! I bet this tastes wonderful, esp. with using whipping cream. Can’t go wrong there. 🙂
Cheers,
Tracy Screaming Sardine
kyleen
October 21, 2011 at 2:55 AMMy 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!
B&B Brugge
October 21, 2011 at 9:39 AMThat’s good look and awesome posting. nice idea for recipes and this is yummy food
cookies and cups
October 21, 2011 at 12:19 PMI am dying over all this apply yumminess!
Mimi
October 21, 2011 at 4:41 PMI’m always ready to try a new apple cake recipe.
Mimi
rebekahdawn
October 22, 2011 at 2:06 PMYour cake looks fantastic!
Regina
October 23, 2011 at 11:21 AMThis 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!
BreAna {Sugar and Spice and All Things Iced}
October 24, 2011 at 10:24 PMMmm Mmmmmm…This looks AMAZING!! What a delicious fall dessert!
hediye
October 25, 2011 at 3:31 AMSounds 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.
Heather at Dragonfly Designs
October 26, 2011 at 3:54 AMOh my gawsh! Yummers! Love the new blog look too!
Desi
October 26, 2011 at 7:24 PMSounds 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
Mary
October 27, 2011 at 9:32 PMThis looks and sounds fantastic.
Possible Baker
October 28, 2011 at 6:18 PMDecandent 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
Anonymous
October 30, 2011 at 2:45 PMYummi,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 🙂
Shauna K
November 10, 2011 at 3:37 PMvisiting from CSI Project- what a scrumptious looking cake!! oh my goodness- definitely bookmarking this to try later 😀
Herman Grans ♥
November 12, 2011 at 7:52 PMOMG! Looks so good, I have to try this receipe! 🙂
Jennifer
November 13, 2011 at 1:58 AMIt looks so incredibly good!
Visiting from Positively Splendid’s link party 🙂
Mackenzie
October 9, 2012 at 1:08 AMAnother great looking recipe! YUM! We look forward to your chocolate recipes this week! 🙂
Mackenzie from the Iron Chef Mom Team 🙂
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