an excellent apple crumb cake. I’ve finally found a solution for those who can’t decide whether to cook an apple crumble or a coffee cake after all these years. The best elements of both of those recipes are present in this. It’s similar to baking a coffee cake with crumbs on top of another coffee cake!
| Prep Time: | 25 mins |
| Cook Time: | 40 mins |
| Additional Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 35 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 9×12-inch cake |
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons unsalted butter
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 ½ cups finely chopped toasted walnuts
- ⅓ cup packed light brown sugar
- ⅓ cup white sugar
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 Honeycrisp apples
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9×12-inch baking dish generously.
- Mix dry ingredients: Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.
- Make the crumble: Combine walnuts, brown sugar, white sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Mix until walnuts and sugar are thoroughly coated with butter.
- Mix the wet ingredients: Cream sugar and butter together in another bowl with a spatula until well blended. Add 1 egg and whisk until mixture is smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Whisk in second egg until thoroughly incorporated. Add yogurt and vanilla; whisk together.
- Add dry flour mixture to wet ingredients; whisk just until flour disappears. Do not overmix.
- Remove cores from apples. Cut across into 1/8- to 1/4-inch slices. Stack up a few slices, make a cut down the center, and dice across into cubes. Add to cake batter, folding in with a spatula until just combined.
- Spread 1/2 of the batter evenly into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Scatter 1/2 of the crumble mixture evenly over the top. Top with the rest of the batter in dollops. Spread carefully to evenly distribute, trying not to disturb the crumbs. Top with the rest of the crumb mixture. Press crumbs into the batter very gently.
- Bake in the center of the preheated oven until a toothpick or bamboo skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Let cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes, before slicing and serving.
- Dark brown sugar will work as well as light brown.
- I used a relatively runny, but beautifully tangy, sheep’s milk yogurt, but regular plain Greek yogurt will work, as well as sour cream.
- You can use Honeycrisp or Granny Smith apples. If you cut your apples too big, your cake will be done but the apples will not be, so take your time and make them small.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 631 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 76 g |
| Cholesterol | 95 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 10 g |
| Saturated Fat | 13 g |
| Sodium | 435 mg |
| Sugars | 48 g |
| Fat | 34 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
First time trying the recipe and we all loved it. Dry Wallers, Siding crew, General Contractor, my husband and I all devoured it! As it’s apple season in MN, I used a First Kiss and Honey Crisp and got the most beautiful flavor. I used 1/2 C White sugar in the wet because I enjoy tasting the tartness of apples, but otherwise followed the recipe. It filled out my glass 13×9 pan perfectly. Thank you to the growers and the recipe makers of the world!!!!!
Used toasted pecans and extra apple. Made in Bundt pan so started with crumble as first layer. Moist and delicious! This recipe is a keeper.
It was amazing my husband loved it !!
As usual Chef John is spot on with this recipe. Everybody who has tried it raves about it. I would just check about 10 min before done baking to make sure edges aren’t getting too brown. I put foil around the edges only to keep topping crunchy. Don’t want to steam it!
I grew up in an apple orchard and love fresh crisp apples directly from the tree. Have never cared for apple pie, apple sauce or any type of cooked apples. I absolutely am enamored with this recipe. I had extra apples with guests coming so I came across this recipe and decided to test it on all 4 of us. One of my guests loves making apple pie and has decided that this cake is his new go to instead of pie. We all loved it! Footnote: I doubled the apples and used pecans. Yum
My daughter asked me for an apple cake this evening and I tried this recipe using whole wheat instead of AP..the entire family loved the cake and the texture was very nice.
My son in law made this for Thanksgiving. It was rich and sweet and very heavy, which was perfect for me! I don’t eat a lot of sweets but when I do, I want something memorable and this was. He made it exactly as stated in the recipe and this is how I do it also.
I substituted the nuts for toasted rolled oats and increased the butter a bit for the crumble along with a cup of chopped unsweetened cranberries and I did one peeled pear and one Granny Smith apple in the batter, with a teaspoon of cinnamon. It turned out really good!
Delicious recipe!! I didn’t have any yogurt so I subbed with 250ml milk & 30ml of apple cider vinegar. Worked perfectly! I took it to church and and it was a real crowd pleaser, also saved a couple of slices so my husband and I could heat & eat as a dessert! Yummy!!
This recipe has way too much sugar. Next time I will cut the sugar in half for both the wet and dry ingredients and the crumble.
What can I say about this cake that hasn’t already been said? Moist. Delicious. Easy. Will definitely be making this again and again!
This is a very good recipe. The only thing I would change is the amount of apples. I put 2 cups of granny smith, I would probably do 3 or 4 cups next time I make it.
100% THE BEST (Apple) dessert of all time! So dang good. I followed the recipe exactly and I’m getting ready to make 2 more cakes (for my neighbors). Oh I did use the electric mixer on the sugar/butter/egg part. And may I just take this opportunity to say Thank You Chef John. For your wonderful videos! I think of you as a friend.
I only made a half batch, it was easy to half everything, I used Silk greek yogurt coconut milk. had to bake 45 minutes. and I diced fine Cosmic Crisp apple. Results were yummo. Next time I will streamline the process, to make it go quicker.
First time I made this I did not have apples or walnuts. I used fresh blueberries and it was great! The second time I followed recipe and it was also great! Chef John has that knowledge that adds up to amazing tasting foods.
Finished cake was superb. My changes as I appreciate less sugar: ~1/2cup of brown sugar only for crumble. Plus I used chopped pecans as I didn’t have walnuts ( hint – don’t short the quantity of nuts in the crumble – mine crumble covered thinly, but it worked. For wet ingredients I cut sugar to 1/2 cup and I used greek yogurt. i also used 2 -apples (because that’s what i had left from my tree). However – the the batter was too thick (maybe from the thicker greek yogurt?) compared to the batter shown on the video. So I added ~ 1/4 cup of sour cream and some milk to get the consistency correct. Everyone at the brunch loved it. Thanks for posting this recipe. I’ll use it again on our brunch rotation. Cheers
So moist and delicious! Used sour cream instead of the yogurt. Can’t wait to eat some more!!
I added 10 minutes to the baking time and used Granny Smith apples. This is a lovely moist dessert and is definitely a keeper to make again.
My boyfriend loves coffee cake. So I doubled this recipe. Only I added apple sauce ( by Squeezing as much of the liquid out with cheesecloth) He loves it.
It takes awhile to prepare but it’s worth it!
Absolutely delicious! No changes needed. The recipe was easy to follow with simple ingredients. I will definitely be making this again, everyone who had it, loved it!! Thank you for sharing the recipe!