It's Fall Y'all: Spiced Apple Coffee Cake

My Favorite Fall Recipe

A few years back I received an email from my favorite shop Williams Sonoma (WS).  It pointed me to their website for an amazing recipe – Spiced Apple Coffee Cake.  As WS always does, they included all the equipment to make the cake.  That included the KitchenAid Mixer, apple peeler/corer, stainless-steel juicer, the cinnamon, vanilla, flour sifter, cooling rack and stainless steel mixing bowls all totaling $538.80 in today’s prices.  This does not include the cost of the ingredients!  I then sent this email out to a few of my friends indicating it was probably the most expensive coffee cake they would ever make.  One friend made the cake and showed up to my door with it in hand.  I swear, I will NEVER forget that.  Thanks Pam.

When I say this is the best ever coffee cake, I’m not kidding.  This cake is so amazing you’ll just dream about it.  I’ll type it up here as I do a couple things differently.

Williams Sonoma’s Spiced Apple Coffee Cake

• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 3 tart cooking apples (Granny Smith or Braeburn), peeled, cored and cut into small cubes.
• 2 Tablespoons fresh orange, or lemon, or apple juice – I used store bought Simply Orange Juice.
• 1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used salted)
• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature (I used Neufchatel)
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon Mexican vanilla
• 2 eggs

Vanilla Glaze

• ¾ cup confectioners’ sugar (I used 1 cup)
• 2 Tablespoons condensed skim milk (or half and half)
• ½ teaspoon Mexican vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Grease and flour a 9-inch round spring form pan or 9″ square baking pan. 

In a medium sized bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a different medium sized bowl toss the apples and orange juice.  Add the brown sugar, cardamom and cinnamon and toss.  Set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer fitted with the flat beater combine the butter, cream cheese, granulated sugar and vanilla and beat on medium speed till light and fluffy.   Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.  Add the flour a little at a time till completely incorporated and smooth.  Remove the bowl from your mixer and fold in the apple mixture till completely mixed in.  Do not over-mix.  Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.

Bake until the top is “golden brown” and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean.  When using really good bake ware, it took only 45 minutes.  The WS recipe says 60 to 70 minutes which would have burnt my cakes.  Set your timer at 45 and watch it from there.

Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. 

Remove the sides of the springform pan, if using, and place the cake on a wire rack set over a piece of wax paper or dish towel.  When the cake is cool, remove the bottom of the pan from the cake using a butter knife. 

In the meantime, make the glaze.  The difference of using condensed skim milk and half and half is consistency and taste.  You’ll get a sweeter taste from the condensed skim milk.  I used one for one cake and one for another this weekend.  I had to add more liquid to the condensed skim milk mixture to get it to be more spreadable.  Plus I had so much of the can left over I didn’t know what to do with it all.  Add all the ingredients together and make a THIN glaze.  Pour onto a cooled cake (different from WS).  Using the back of our spoon spread the glaze so it drips down the sides of the cake.  Make sure it doesn’t pool in the crevices of the cake.  Let it set till dry all over.  Place on a plate and cover with clear plastic wrap till serving time.

I cut it into small wedges.  If using a 9” square pan, cut into squares.