Apple Butter Coffee Cake
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This cozy, spiced up Apple Butter Coffee Cake has all the feel goods for fall baking! Our scrumptious coffee cake is layered with autumn-inspired spices, apples and of course–apple butter with a delicious brown sugar cinnamon crumble on top!
Finishing it off with a light drizzle of sweet vanilla glaze makes it irresistible! It’s pretty easy to mix up, and SO delicious!
This apple butter crumb cake is perfect for a fall dessert with a cup of coffee. The recipe was modified from my Apple Butter Spice Cake with Apple Butter Buttercream Frosting! Give it a try too!
What is Apple Butter?
Apple butter is made by slowly cooking pureed apples for over an hour, so it is essentially concentrated applesauce. It’s usually flavored with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and the cooking process is similar.
The only difference is that apple butter is milled, pureed, or finely chopped and then cooked for a longer period of time, which gets out more water and allows it to caramelize. What you’re left with is a dark brown, deeply caramelized spread packed with intense apple flavor.
Ironically, there is no butter in apple butter! The only thing apple butter has in common with regular butter, is that it spreads like butter but it’s more like a jam. It’s amazing on a buttered toast or warm fresh rolls out of the oven! And now we can make our Apple Butter Coffee Cake recipe with it!
3 Basic Elements to Making Apple Butter Coffee Cake
There are three elements to this cake…the batter, the streusel crumb topping, and the glaze!
The batter is pretty simple but has a few special ingredients like apple butter, apples, and a bit of Greek yogurt to give the cake a perfect moist crumble with warm, cozy spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves that we love with apple desserts!
Simply mix together the wet ingredients, then add in the dry, add in the apples and mix until just combined. Add the crumble on top of the apple butter coffee cake and bake away! Once it’s done, drizzle it with some vanilla glaze and enjoy fall flavors at it’s finest!
Ingredients You Need for Apple Butter Crumb Cake
Dry ingredients
- all-purpose flour
- on baking soda
- salt
- ground nutmeg
- ground cinnamon
- ground cloves
Wet ingredients
- granulated sugar
- unsalted butter at room temperature
- eggs
- Apple Butter
- Greek yogurt
- 1 apple, cored and chopped
Crumb Topping
- brown sugar
- ground cinnamon
- flour
- butter, softened at room temperature
- walnuts or pecans, optional
Vanilla Icing
- confectioners sugar
- heavy cream or milk of choice
- vanilla extract
- salt
- ground cinnamon, optional
How to Make Apple Butter Coffee Cake Recipe
Make The Crumb Topping
- Use a fork to mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and softened butter in a small bowl until you have a coarse, lumpy mixture. Set aside in the fridge while you make the batter.
Make the Apple Butter Coffee Cake
- Set the oven to 350F and spray an 8×8 or 9×9 pan lightly with cooking spray and/or line with parchment paper for easy removal.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.
- Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the apple butter.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients alternately with the yogurt, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix just until combined, don’t over beat.
- Spread the batter in the prepared pan and Top with cake with the crumb topping.
- Bake for about 40-55 minutes, depending on size of pan, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out without wet batter clinging to it.
- Place cake on a rack while you make the glaze.
How to Make the Vanilla Glaze
- Whisk together the powdered sugar, cream/milk, vanilla, cinnamon and salt until combined. Add a little more cream for creamier, thinner glaze and a little more powdered sugar for thicker glaze until you get the texture you are looking for.
- Using a spatula or spoon, drizzle the coffee cake. Serve warm.
Additional Baking Tips
- Room temperature ingredients – for the best results when baking, cold ingredients should be at room temperature so they can incorporate fully into the batter much easier.
- Do not overmix cake batter – when mixing the dry ingredients into the wet, you want to stir until JUST combined until you no longer see streaks of flour. If you over-mix, your cake could end up tough, bake unevenly, or have lots of large holes in it.
- Use fresh ingredients – Did you know using older baking soda/baking powder can affect the way your baked goods bake? Over time, leavening agents (which is what baking soda and powder are) lose their efficacy, and won’t give your quick bread a good rise. Also using older cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves can also affect the pleasant aroma and much of the spicy taste.
- If you have pumpkin spice, you can replace all the cinnamon, nutmeg and clove spices with it and measure out 2 teaspoons worth. You could also use apple pie spice as well.
- If you don’t want the glaze, that is fine! This cake is moist enough, it doesn’t need glaze, although I love glaze on coffee cakes to give them the extra sweetness!
- Make this cake sugar-free if you wish to cut back on sugar. Use Lakanto sugar (get 15% off using my ‘thebakingchocolatess15’ code) to make it sugar-free and make sure you use a sugar-free apple butter to also cut back on sugar.
How to Store Apple Coffee Cake
- Refrigerator: This cake will stay fresh in the refrigerator in an airtight container for 4-5 days. Bring cake to room temperature or microwave to warm it up for best flavor options.
- Freezer: Apple cake freezes nicely. Wrap it tightly in a layer of plastic wrap covered by another layer of aluminum foil. The cake will stay fresh in the freezer for about 2 months.
- Thawing and Reheating: Place the frozen cake in the refrigerator overnight to thaw. To reheat, place a slice of cake in the microwave for a few seconds until warm and soft.
Are you fall baking? It’s time to get baking with this Apple Butter Coffee Cake recipe! Get a jump onward with 25 Best Apple-icious Desserts That’ll Tempt You we simply adore! Check out 45 Must-Try Best Apple Dessert Recipes for more apple recipes!
More Fall Baking!
- 4 Amazing Apple Coffee Cakes
- Cinnamon Coffee Cake Muffins
- Caramel Apple Bundt Cake
- Apple Crumb Cream Cheese Coffee Cake
- Caramel Glazed Apple Crumble Coffee Cake
- Easy Apple Cinnamon Biscuit Bake
- Awesome Country Apple Fritter Bread
- More yogurt dessert ideas? Check out these 20 Dessert Recipes Using Greek Yogurt!
Apple Butter Coffee Cake
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
Wet Ingredients
- ¾ cup sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup Apple Butter
- ½ cup Greek yogurt
- 1 apple cored and chopped
Crumb Topping
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ cup flour
- ¼ cup butter ½ stick, softened at room temperature
- ½ cup walnuts or pecans optional
Vanilla Glaze
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream or milk of choice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- A couple pinches of salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
How to Make the Crumb Topping
- Use a fork to mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and softened butter in a small bowl until you have a coarse, lumpy mixture. Set aside in the fridge while you make the batter.
Make the Apple Butter Coffee Cake
- Set the oven to 350F and spray an 8x8 or 9x9 pan lightly with cooking spray and/or line with parchment paper for easy removal.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.
- Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the apple butter.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients alternately with the yogurt, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix just until combined, don't over beat.
- Spread the batter in the prepared pan and Top with cake with the crumb topping.
- Bake for about 40-55 minutes, depending on size of pan, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out without wet batter clinging to it.
- Place cake on a rack while you make the glaze.
How to Make the Vanilla Glaze
- Whisk together the powdered sugar, cream/milk, vanilla, cinnamon and salt until combined. Add a little more cream for creamier, thinner glaze and a little more powdered sugar for thicker glaze until you get the texture you are looking for.
- Using a spatula or spoon, drizzle the coffee cake. Serve warm.
Notes
- Make this cake sugar-free if you wish to cut back on sugar. Use Lakanto sugar (get 15% off using my 'thebakingchocolatess15' code) to make it sugar-free and make sure you use a sugar-free apple butter
to also cut back on sugar.
Apple concentrate and crumbs on the top?!? It’s calling my name !