Cinna-Apple Coffee Cake

Oh you, wherever you are, I wish you could smell my house right now.  It smells like fall. It smells like apples and cinnamon baking with brown sugar and pecans with a really great cake foundation.  You should try this. Really, really.  The smell alone is worth it.

A couple of weeks ago I had some extra peaches lying around, so I thought I would try a peach streusel coffee cake.  My husband loved it and ate it every day for breakfast (and sometimes as a snack) until it was gone.  I came home from work one day and he casually mentioned that he was out of coffee cake “by the way.”  Hint much?

Since then, we have gotten a ton of fresh apples from his parent’s apple tree, and I figured that a coffee cake would make good use of them.  This morning I decided to tinker with the Williams and Sonoma recipe that I used for the peach streusel coffee cake and add in some elements from my handy dandy Joy of Cooking cook book.  What I came up with is surely a keeper.  While it was baking it filled the house with an absolutely amazing scent.   The smell actually woke my husband, who came bumbling down the stairs sniffing his way around the corner.

Once everything is ready to go, you pop it in the oven and wait for that amazing smell to start wafting through your house.

Just don’t put it in the oven for quite as long as I did. Mine came out a little bit overdone.  If you follow the instructions in the recipe (unlike me), your cake should come out beautifully.

So this turns out pretty sweet.  Joe eats it for breakfast, but I think it would work well as a dessert.   It will keep in the fridge for several days. It is also worth noting that we like lots of cinnamon.  If you don’t like a strong cinnamon flavor, I would advise cutting the cinnamon in half (in both the topping and the apple mixture). Bon appetit!

Cinna-Apple Coffee Cake

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★★★★★

5 from 5 reviews

A low sodium cinnamon apple coffee cake – perfect for fall! 

 SODIUM COUNT: 183.6 mg for the whole cake; 15.3 mg per slice

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 40 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
• Yield: 12 slices 1x

Ingredients

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Apple Topping

• 5 small apples (peeled and sliced)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Streusel

• 1/3 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup pecans (chopped)
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter (cold)

Cake Batter

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 CUP sugar
• 2 tsp sodium-free baking powder
• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter (melted)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk ((I used 1%, but others should work fine))
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp almond extract

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Instructions

Initial Prep

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Spray a 9” springform pan* with cooking spray and set aside.

Streusel

1. Stir together the brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and pecans.
2. Mix the cold butter into the dry ingredients until the ingredients are crumbly. Set aside.

Cake Batter

1. Mix together the dry ingredient in a mixing bowl.
2. In a separate, smaller bowl whisk together the melted butter, egg, milk, and extracts.  
3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together until mixed. Do not overmix.

Assemble and Bake

1. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Top the batter evenly with the apple mixture and then sprinkle the streusel across the top. 
2.  Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes.
3. Let the cake cool in the pan on a cooling rack before removing the sides of the pan and serving. The cake will keep for several days in the refrigerator. 

Notes

  *Alternately, you can use a 9” square (or similar-sized cake pan). If you are using a glass dish, reduce the oven temp to 325°F.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION Yield: 12 servings Sodium: 15.3 mg, Calories: 264.6, Total Fat: 9.7 g, Saturated Fat: 4.7 g, Cholesterol: 35.8 mg, Carbohydrates: 42.8 g, Fiber: 1.9 g, Sugar: 26.4 g, Protein: 3.2 g.