Exploring the World of Apple Cider Cake

Capture all the nostalgia of fall trips to the cider mill with this easy Apple Cider Cake! Filled with tangy sweet apple cider savor and finished with a cider glaze and crunchy cinnamon sugar coating, this apple Cider Donut cake tastes just like the cake donuts you get from the apple orchard!

Tis’ the season for apple desserts! If you loved this one, you’ll moreover want to trammels out our chewy Spiced apple Cake, Easy Crescent Roll apple Dumplings, and Caramelized apple Pie.

An Easy Apple Cider Bundt Cake

My husband has lived in Ohio for nearly 15 years, and for the most part, I finger like he’s fully integrated into Ohio life. He wears Buckeye gear on game days, bottoms for the Blue Jackets (with some warranted frustration), and knows to properly fathom a good Tater Tot Casserole.

But every fall, I know he misses Michigan. It’s not the fall colors that have him pining for his home state (though they are stunning). It’s the cider mills.

His hometown sits within driving loftiness of several cider mills, many of them historic polity mainstays, featuring time-worn water wheels that power their fresh pressed cider operation. And of undertow the greatest yank of all is the apple cider donuts, served hot out of the fryer and shaken with cinnamon and sugar until the grease forms translucent spots on the paper bag.

There is truly nothing quite like a steaming hot donut dunked in a cup of cider, the cinnamon sugar coating your lips as cider dribbles lanugo your chin. I understand why my husband gets nostalgic for it this time of year.

It’s not just a flavor, but an experience, one that instantly takes you when to diaper afternoons spent apple picking, jumping in piles of leaves and gathering virtually a campfire to stay warm.

This fall, we weren’t applely-wise to visit Michigan, so we found flipside way to capture the magic at home, with this homemade apple Cider Donut Cake!

Why You’ll Fall in Love with this apple Cider Cake

• Featuring warm spices in a moist and dumbo apple cider cake batter, this donut cake is as tropical to a cider donut as you can get without making donuts!
• This cake features a very special apple cider glaze made by reducing apple cider until the savor is very concentrated. It’s then mixed with melted butter and brushed on the warm cake to amp up the flavors and make the perfect wiring to stick on plenty of cinnamon sugar.
• Speaking of cinnamon sugar, we’ve got plenty of it! I use a mix of granulated and woody sugar to requite the cake husks a little uneaten texture. It mimics the crispiness of deep fried doughnuts without the frying.

This succulent apple cider donut cake comes together in well-nigh 90 minutes and can hands feed 10-15 people. It’s a unconfined option for Thanksgiving and all your other fall gatherings!

Key Ingredients

• Dry ingredients include all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Spices, including cinnamon and nutmeg. The nutmeg is KEY to making this apple cake taste like a cider donut!
• Butter– We use unsalted butter when baking, so we can tenancy the salt.
• Sugars– We’ll use a mix of brown and granulated sugar.
• Eggs– This apple bundt cake has a whopping four eggs in it, which gives it an ultra moist and rich texture.
• Apple cider– We recommend picking up fresh apple cider from a local farmers’ market for the weightier flavor. Higher quality ciders will be a rich, warm brown and will be darker in verisimilitude than most ciders found at big box stores.
• Cinnamon Sugars for the topping- We’ll finish the cake with a cinnamon sugar drizzle. I like to use a mix of granulated sugar and demerara sugar for a nice crunch. Turbinado or flipside woody sugar moreover works well.

How to Make apple Cider Cake

1. Prep. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12-cup bundt pan with Baker’s Joy or flipside non-stick spray with flour.
2. Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sultry powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In the trencher of a stand mixer, write-up together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar on medium speed until lighter in verisimilitude and fluffy, scraping the trencher occasionally. This will take 3-5 minutes (really, that long!).
4. Add remaining wet ingredients. Add the eggs, one at a time, vibration well and scraping the trencher without each addition. Write-up in the vanilla extract.
5. Add dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing on low speed until incorporated.
6. Add apple cider. With the mixer running on the lowest speed, add the cider in a slow stream, and mix until combined. Scrape the trencher well to make sure the thrash is fully incorporated.
7. Bake. Scrape the thrash into the prepared bundt pan and torch for 40-50 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the part-way of the cake comes out clean. Allow to tomfool for 10 minutes surpassing inverting the cake onto a cooling rack set over a sultry pan lined with parchment paper.
8. Reduce the apple cider. While the cake is baking, add the remaining cider to a small saucepan over upper heat. Bring the cider to a boil, then reduce heat to a low swash and protract to cook, stirring every 10 minutes or so, for well-nigh 30 minutes, or until it’s reduced to virtually ⅓ cup. Stir in the butter until melted.
9. Glaze and sugar. In a trencher whisk together the sugars and cinnamon. While the cake is still warm, use a pastry skim to skim the cider mixture all over the outside. Sprinkle the top with sugar, then use the palm of your hand to printing spare sugar onto the sides.

How to Serve apple Cider Donut Cake

I prefer to serve this cake warm, as it weightier echoes the wits of warm cider donuts. If the cake has once cooled, reheat individual slices in the microwave for well-nigh 20 seconds.

I love to serve the cake with a glass of unprepossessed cider, either for sipping or dunking.

It’s moreover lovely with a scoop of vanilla ice surf and salted homemade caramel sauce.

For breakfast (yes, we eat cake for breakfast sometimes!), serve it plain with a hot cup of coffee.

Tips for Perfect Fluffy Bundt Cake

1. Properly surf the butter and sugar. Over the years, I’ve noticed people tend to stop vibration together the butter and sugar as soon as it seems combined (usually virtually 1 minute), but truly creaming the butter and sugar takes much longer, usually 3-5 minutes. Without a minute, the butter and sugar will still be visionless in verisimilitude and will finger thick and dumbo when scraped with a spatula. Protract vibration on medium upper speed for flipside 3 minutes, scraping the trencher every minute. You’ll see the butter and sugar turn a paler yellow verisimilitude and proceeds volume and fluffiness. This translates to a fluffier cake!
2. Use room temperature eggs. This isn’t 100% necessary, but it does help. Room temperature eggs will increasingly hands incorporate into the creamed butter and sugar mixture. If your eggs aren’t at room temp, just place them in a trencher of hot water for a few minutes surpassing proceeding with your recipe.
3. Use Baker’s Joy to grease your bundt pan. I haven’t had a single issue with cakes sticking since I started using Baker’s Joy, and we’ve used some pretty elaborate bundt cake pans with lots of nooks and crannies.
4. These are the weightier bundt pans I’ve overly used. They release hands and wipe up quickly.

Storage and Make Ahead Instructions

Leftover apple cider cake should be wrapped with saran wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 5 days.

To freeze apple cider cake, prepare the cake as usual, but omit the glaze. Allow the cake to cool, then double wrap it in plastic wrap then foil, and freeze for up to 3 months.

Thaw completely at room temperature, then place in the oven for well-nigh 10 minutes just to warm the outside. Make the glaze, then glaze and sugar the cake as usual.

What can I make with leftover cider?

We use apple cider in all sorts of recipes. It’s unconfined in cocktails, like these Bourbon apple Cider Cocktails, and it moreover makes a unconfined Fall Sangria.

Make this Cider Syrup for a succulent winger to Apple Cinnamon Pancakes, or tomfool off on an unseasonably warm fall day with these Caramel apple Cider Floats.

If you need a savory option, try this Apple Cider Chicken.

More Bundt Cakes for Every Season

We’re on a mission to have an easy, no-fuss, elegant bundt cake for every season and occasion.

We recommend this Orange Cake or this Lemon Bundt Cake for Easter or spring gatherings.

For summer cookouts and BBQs, try this Strawberry Bundt Cake or our Peach Bundt Cake.

In the fall, this apple Cider Donut cake is a well-spoken favorite, but we moreover love our Pear Bundt Cake.

For the holidays, you can’t go wrong with our very popular, decadent Chocolate Bundt Cake.

And of course, this Banana Caramel cake is a hit unendingly of year.

Apple Cider Donut Cake

Yield: 12-15

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

This apple Cider cake captures all the warmth and nostalgia of a cinnamon sugar coated apple cider donut. With a tangy sweet apple cider glaze and plenty of warm spices, this is the ultimate fall bundt cake.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 3 ½ cups all purpose flour
• 2 ½ teaspoons sultry powder
• 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 ½ sticks (20 Tablespoons, 1 ¼ cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 ½ cups brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup apple cider

For the coating:

• 2 cups apple cider
• 2 Tablespoons salted butter
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• 2 Tablespoons demerara or turbinado sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12 cup bundt pan with Baker’s Joy or flipside non-stick spray with flour.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sultry powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.
3. In the trencher of a stand mixer, write-up together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar on medium speed until lighter in verisimilitude and fluffy, scraping the trencher occasionally. This will take 3-5 minutes (really, that long!).
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, vibration well and scraping the trencher without each addition. Write-up in the vanilla extract.
5. Add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing on low speed until incorporated. With the mixer running on the lowest speed, add the cider in a slow stream, and mix until combined. Scrape the trencher well to make sure the thrash is fully incorporated.
6. Scrape the thrash into the prepared bundt pan and torch for 40-50 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the part-way of the cake comes out clean. Allow to tomfool for 10 minutes surpassing inverting onto a plate.
7. While the cake is baking, add the 2 cups of cider to a small saucepan over upper heat. Bring the cider to a boil, then reduce heat to a low swash and protract to cook, stirring every 10 minutes or so, for well-nigh 30 minutes, or until it’s thickened and reduced to virtually ⅓ cup. Stir in the butter until melted.
8. In a trencher whisk together the sugars and cinnamon. While the cake is still warm, skim the cider mixture all over the outside. Sprinkle the top with sugar, then use the palm of your hand to printing spare sugar onto the sides. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition Information

Yield: 15 Serving Size: 1

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 302Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 59mgSodium: 312mgCarbohydrates: 60gFiber: 1gSugar: 35gProtein: 5g