Sour Cream Apple Cake

Products Used

Ingredients

Crumb Topping

Cinnamon Swirl

Cake

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups Imperial Sugar Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 4 eggs
  • 16 ounces sour cream
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour*
  • 2 – 2 1/2 cups peeled and diced Granny Smith apples (2 medium-sized apples)

Glaze

  • 1 cup Imperial Sugar Confectioners Powdered Sugar
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • Pinch salt
  • *Spoon & Sweep method: Use a spoon to fill measuring cup with flour until required amount is obtained. Scooping measuring cup directly into flour bag will firmly pack flour resulting in too much flour required for recipe.

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick spray and set aside.
  2. For crumb topping, use a medium bowl and combine butter, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and flour. Using your hands or a pastry cutter combine ingredients until they resemble coarse sand and hold together when squeezed. Set aside.
  3. For cinnamon swirl, use a small bowl and combine sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.
  4. For cake, in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment combine butter and sugar, mixing on medium speed for 2 minutes.
  5. Add in vanilla and eggs mixing until smooth, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.
  6. Add in sour cream, salt, baking soda, and baking powder, and continue mixing on medium speed for 30 seconds, until mixture is combined.
  7. Turn mixer to low and add in flour, mixing until just incorporated.
  8. Stir in apples.
  9. Spread half of batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle batter with half of cinnamon swirl mixture. Using a knife swirl mixture into batter.
  10. Repeat again with remaining batter and remaining cinnamon sugar.
  11. Sprinkle crumb topping onto cake.
  12. Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
  13. Allow cake to cool in pan until ready to serve.
  14. Prepare glaze by whisking all ingredients together until smooth. Drizzle over top of cake. 
Imperial Sugar Insight

Recipe developed for Imperial Sugar by Shelly Jaronsky @CookiesandCups.

Rate & Review
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Sweetalk member
Nov 22, 2020

This recipe is amazing! It does make a large cake, so I think you can easily cut the recipe in half for a smaller crowd. It is very moist and was super quick to make. We enjoyed it with coffee in the morning and ate it again later on. We shared with some neighbors who also loved it. We couldn't get enough of it and I will for sure make this again. I really like the apples in it, so I might try even more apples next time.

Sweetalk member
Nov 20, 2020

Living in central Ohio where we have an abundance of apples this time of year, i am always looking for a good Apple Cake recipe: this is not it. This recipe is so problematic I don't know where to begin. First the crumb topping has way too much butter. It was not ever a "sand" consistency. I used my hands at the end to try and crumble it and the heat from my body just made a cinnamon butter ball. I went ahead and put it on top since that was the only oil in the entire cake. I think it would have been better just putting a half cup of oil in the batter and half of cup of butter in the topping. Secondly , the glaze is all wrong. One tablespoon of milk does not make it thin enough to drizzle. I added more milk 1/2 teaspoon at a time to get to the consistency I wanted. I think it could of used another cup of apple too. I did add pecans to both the swirl and topping which helped a lot. I wish now I would have added raisins to the batter too. Overall it was expensive to make and needs to go back to the test kitchen. There is a great apple cake recipe on All Recipes-don't waste you time or ingredients on this one.

Sweetalk member
Oct 13, 2018

This is a lot of cake. To me it tastes like a cinnamon coffee cake. I don't taste the apples at all, but it is good. As for the 12 servings-- not unless you are serving it to giants. The cake is thick and fills a really big baking dish. If I make it again, I think I'll half the recipe.

Bea
Sep 17, 2018

I had apples ( red delicious) that I needed to use so I made this recipe. I used Dixie Crystals dark brown sugar because it's what I had. I loved it! Moist and really delicious. From now on I think I prefer the dark brown sugar it's a but more rich. Definitely making this again. It's the perfect fall dessert.


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