Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

Welcome to a new book year of The Cake Slice Bakers on my blog!  Once a year we vote on and select a cake cookbook that we bake a recipe from of each month.  For the next year we will be baking from The Southern Cake Book Paperback by The Editors of Southern Living Magazine.  We are all excited to be baking from this new cake book choice.

This month we had our choice of which cake to bake.  We got to pick from: 

Rum-Glazed Sweet Potato Cakes

Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

Cranberry Apple Pumpkin Bundt

Orange Pecan Spice Pound Cake

I haven't done a coffee cake in a while so decided to give that one a go... apples and caramel, yum!

The first thing we needed to do is make the caramel sauce and set it aside.  Then onto the apples for the middle layer of the coffee cake.  The recipe calls for the apples to be peeled, cored and sliced then sauteed in a bit of butter.  You want to let the sauteed apples to sit and cool while you work on the rest of the recipe. 

I found in the end product that the apples were mushy and I would most likely skip this step if I make this coffee cake again.

Onto the streusel topping made up of sugars, pecans, cinnamon, flour and butter.  Simply stir it together and set to the side.  

Time to mix the cake portion of the recipe.  One thing that I hate in the morning is the see the phrase 'softened butter'.  I have barely finished my first cup of coffee and you want me to have had enough brain power to have taken out butter to soften a half hour before?  Yeah, no. 

A good workaround is to cut up your butter in thin pieces, spread them out in your bowl and the butter will be ready for creaming in about 10 minutes.... enough time to brew another cup of coffee.... ahhh.

Mixing together your cake is pretty basic.  Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs and then mix in the dry alternating with the mix.  Spoon the batter into a greased spingform pan.  Time to add the apples to the top of the batter.  I found that distributing them by hand was the easiest.

Crumble to streusel all of the top of the apples, then drizzle about 1/2 a cup of the caramel sauce over the streusel.  Time to go in the oven.

This coffeecake takes over an hour to bake and comes out nicely browned.  Time for it to sit and cool.

After it cools for a bit it is time for it to be unmolded.  The pan is so full the the topping has baked over the edge and this makes getting the ring off quite difficult along with messy.

The cake also stuck quite firmly to the ring.  

It would be best to use a 10" pan instead of a 9" like the recipe called for and line the ring with parchment.  Be sure to adjust your baking time if you do change your pan size.

After it cools for an hour it is time to serve the coffee cake.  Unfortunately this coffee cake does not cut and serve cleanly due to the topping being solid and hard to cut through.

Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/caramel-apple-coffee-cake

Yield: Makes 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

3 cups peeled and sliced Granny Smith apples (about 3 large)

Streusel Topping*

Caramel Suace*

1/2 cup butter, softened 

1 cup sugar 

2 large eggs 

2 cups all-purpose flour 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

2/3 cup milk 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add apples; sauté 5 minutes or until softened. Remove from heat; cool completely (about 30 minutes).

2. Meanwhile, prepare Streusel Topping and Caramel Sauce. Reserve 1/2 cup Caramel Sauce for another use.

3. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition.

4. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; add to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured shiny 9-inch springform pan; top with apples. Drizzle with 1/2 cup Caramel Sauce; sprinkle with Streusel Topping.

5. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Cover loosely with aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; bake 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. (A wooden pick will not come out clean.) Cool in pan on a wire rack 30 minutes; remove sides of pan. Cool completely on wire rack (about 1 1/2 hours). Drizzle with 1/2 cup Caramel Sauce.

*Caramel Suace - makes about 1 1/2 cups

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 

1/2 cup butter 

1/4 cup whipping cream 

1/4 cup honey 

Bring brown sugar, butter, whipping cream, and honey to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly; boil, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Remove from heat, and cool 15 minutes before serving. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 1 week. To reheat, microwave at HIGH 10 to 15 seconds or just until warm; stir until smooth.

*Streusel Topping

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

1 cup chopped pecans 

1/2 cup butter, melted 

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 

1/4 cup granulated sugar 

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

1/4 teaspoon salt 

Stir together flour, pecans, melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt until blended. Let stand 30 minutes or until firm enough to crumble into small pieces.

The Caramel Apple Coffee Cake was voted quite tasty and the whole family enjoyed a piece of the cake.  But none of us felt that extra caramel sauce was needed and that the apples were too mushy.  

I felt that it was good but not worth the four hours it took to get to eat it.  I think with some adjustments it would be a great coffee cake.

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Happy Baking!

:)