Apple Spice Cake

a close up image of a triple layered cake, with a quarter cut out to show the inside, on a white cake stand with thick, pale yellow frosting decorative apple slices on one side of the cake

5 from 4 votes

This apple spice cake is tender-crumbed and soft, with a structure and flavour that’s gorgeous on the first day but further improved by leaving overnight for all the flavours to meld together.

Prep Time20

Cook Time12

Total Time32

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: apple spice cake, cream cheese frosting, layer cake

Servings:

Calories: 592kcal

Ingredients

Cake

2 cups self raising flour if it’s not available where you are, use all purpose flour and 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup superfine sugar caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves
4 eggs
1 cup whole milk
2 tbs honey
1/2 cup rice bran oil any other flavourless oil will work; Nanna used to use grape seed oil
1 apple large, about 100g/3oz, peeled and coarsely grated

Frosting

16 oz cream cheese 2 x 8oz/250g packages, at room temperature
4 oz unsalted butter room temperature
1 cup confectioners sugar icing sugar

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Cake

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F, combination steam setting. If your oven has variable steam settings, use 30-40% humidity. Grease and line the bases of three x 20cm (8inch) cake pans (if you haven’t got three pans just batch bake in one - you’ll need to be quick smart about turning out each layer and refilling the pan, so you can use the batter up while the raising agents are still active).
Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and whisk to combine and remove any large lumps.
Put all the wet ingredients, including the apple, into another bowl and whisk to combine. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. The batter will be quite runny.
Pour the batter evenly between the three pans, and bake each one until a skewer tests clean in the middle, about 12 minutes. I can fit two pans at a time into my oven, so I just bake the final one as soon as the first two come out.
Leave the cooked layers to cool for a couple of minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely. At this point you can cover and leave the layers overnight before frosting, if you like.

Frosting

To make frosting, put all the ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle blade, or into a food processor, and beat or process until well combined and fluffy.
Layer the cakes with a generous spread of frosting between each one, then frost the top and sides to finish (you can do a ‘naked’ frosting on the sides as per the photos, if you like – just scrape the frosting almost off the cake to expose the individual layers). Add decorative apple slices if desired (see note), then serve. This cake will keep, covered in the fridge, for up to four days.

Notes

Serves 8-10.
I remember Nanna baking this in either a standard 20cm (8in) round pan or a loaf pan. It was always baked as one single cake and I never saw it iced. You can certainly do it that way too, and the lack of icing/frosting has its benefits: on about the third day, if there’s any left, you can toast slices of the cake and load them up with good butter just as you might a banana bread. It’s almost worth saving some (or doubling the recipe) just for that purpose.
Partly for aesthetic reasons but also because it cooks faster, I’ve chosen here to bake the cake in three quite thin layers (still in a 20cm/8in round, though). If you’d like to cook a single larger cake that’s fine, you’ll just have to play around with the timings. I’d start checking for doneness at about the 25 or 30 minute mark, but it could take up to 45 depending on your pan. Also, be aware that baked as a single cake, it will rise and crack a bit on top. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.
The frilly apples you see on top of the cake were simmered in a simple syrup of 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water to stop them oxidising and give a little shine. Here’s how I do it: bring sugar and water to the boil and simmer it for a few minutes to thicken slightly. Turn the heat down so it’s just bubbling and drop in very thinly sliced apple. Allow the apple to cook in the syrup for about 10 minutes before removing to a rack. Allow to cool completely before using them as decoration. The apples will last a good couple of days on the cake, and they’ll be glossy on the first day you make them, but less so after that.

Nutrition