Apple Pound Cake

This moist Apple Pound Cake is bursting with flavor from sliced apples, warm spices, caramel, and a sprinkling of pecans. If you are searching for your next fall cake recipe, look no further!

Most of the flavor in this decadent cake comes from the apple pie spice and granny smith apples that are folded into the batter. The caramel glaze is perfect for this fall cake, and the sprinkling of crushed pecans adds just a bit of crunch.

Keep this apple pound cake in mind for your fall birthday cakes, potlucks, Thanksgiving, or just because!

How to Make Apple Pound Cake

You can find the full, printable recipe for Apple Pound Cake at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease and flour a bundt pan.
• Peel apples and slice into small pieces. You will need 2 cups. (For us, this was 2 large granny smith apples). Set aside.

• In a separate bowl whisk the all purpose flour, baking powder, apple pie spice, and salt to combine, set aside for later.
• Mix the softened butter on medium speed until smooth (using paddle attachment if you have a stand mixer). Gradually add the white and brown sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy (3 to 5 minutes).

• Add the eggs one at a time, blending after each to incorporate.
• In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the sour cream and vanilla extract.
• While mixing on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream mixture to the butter, sugar, & egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. (We add the flour mixture three times and the sour cream mixture twice). Mix just until incorporated. The batter will be thick.

• Fold in the two cups of diced apples.

Then, scoop the batter into the prepared bundt or tube pan.

• Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 hour and 10-15 minutes. Check on the cake as it nears the 1 hour mark and adjust additional time as needed. When an inserted toothpick or skewer comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs attached, it is ready.

• This recipe makes approximately 8-8.5 cups of batter.

Caramel Glaze

We love the combination of caramel and apples and so today we decided to top our apple pound cake with a homemade caramel glaze.

This simple caramel sauce is a combination of brown sugar, heavy cream, butter, a pinch of salt, vanilla extract, and a bit of light corn syrup (to prevent sugar crystals from forming).

After melting the butter and combining the other ingredients, simmer the mixture for 6 minutes before taking off of the heat. The caramel will thicken as it cools. You can find the full recipe in our recipe card at the bottom of this post!

Decorating the Cake

Once the cake had cooled and the caramel had thickened up a bit, we drizzled it over the apple pound cake.

You can spoon the caramel over the cake if you would like, but for more control, today we opted to use a disposable piping bag (with the tip snipped away).

As an optional final step, we topped the caramel with crushed pecans.

FAQs

Thanks so much for stopping by today! We hope that you enjoy this apple pound cake as much as we have! It is such a great option for fall celebrations! Don't miss our full collection of favorite cake recipes and cake decorating tutorials!

More Apple Cakes

We've made several apple cakes over the years! Some of our favorites are our Applesauce Cake, Apple Pecan Bundt Cake, Apple Dapple Cake, and Apple Caramel Pecan Cake.

Apple Pound Cake

BY Melissa and Bebe

This ultra moist Apple Pound Cake is bursting with flavor from bits of apple, warm spices, caramel, and a sprinkling of pecans. This is a great recipe for fall celebrations!

Prep Time: 20 minutes mins

Cook Time: 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Servings: 15

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Ingredients

• ▢ 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened (339g)
• ▢ 2 cups white sugar (400g)
• ▢ 1 cup light brown sugar (200g)
• ▢ 5 large eggs, room temperature (if you are in a hurry, place in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
• ▢ 3 cups All Purpose Flour (not self-rising) (375g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking powder (2g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
• ▢ 1½ teaspoons apple pie spice (3g)
• ▢ 1 cup sour cream (242g)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
• ▢ 2 cups peeled apples, finely chopped (200g)(we used 2 large Granny Smith apples)

Caramel Glaze

• ▢ ½ stick unsalted butter (57g)
• ▢ 1 cup brown sugar 200g (we used light brown)
• ▢ ½ cup heavy cream 126g
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt 2g
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 4g
• ▢ 1 tablespoon light corn syrup 18g (This helps to prevent sugar crystals from forming)

Topping (optional)

• ▢ ¼-½ cup chopped pecans

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease and flour a bundt pan.
• Peel apples and slice into small pieces. You will need 2 cups. (For us, this was 2 large granny smith apples).Set aside.
• In a separate bowl whisk the all purpose flour, baking powder, apple spice, and salt to combine, set aside for later.
• Mix the butter on medium speed until smooth (using paddle attachment if you have a stand mixer). Gradually add the white and brown sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy (3 to 5 minutes).
• Add the eggs one at a time, blending after each to incorporate.
• In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the sour cream and vanilla extract.
• While mixing on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream mixture to the butter, sugar, & egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. (I add the flour mixture three times and the sour cream mixture twice). Mix just until incorporated.
• Fold in the two cups of diced apples. Scoop into prepared bundt pan.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour, 10-15 minutes. Check on the cake as it nears the 1 hour mark and adjust additional time as needed. When an inserted toothpick or skewer comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs attached, it is ready.
• This recipe makes approximately 8-8.5 cups of batter.

For the Caramel Glaze

• Using a medium size saucepan (deep enough to prevent boil over) melt the butter over medium heat.Add the brown sugar and the remaining ingredients and heat on medium high heat.
• Stir to blend, try to keep mixture off the sides of the pan. Once the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 6 minutes, checking often to make sure that it is not going to boil over. It should still be bubbling.
• After 6 minutes, remove from heat.Keep in mind that the caramel with thicken up a bit as it cools. You can pour it into a long glass casserole dish if you want it to cool more quickly. We often refrigerate to cool it off as well.
• Makes about 1 cup caramel sauce. It can be kept in the refrigerator in an airtight container up to 2 weeks.
• Once the cake and caramel have cooled, you can either spoon the caramel over the cake, or for more control, add to a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away or to a ziplock bag with a bit of the corner snipped away and drizzle onto the cake.
• Topped with crushed pecans if you'd like.

Notes

 We used a tube pan that measures about 10 inches across and has a baking capacity of 12 cups (although this recipe has about 8 cups batter). If you are using a larger pan, the cake will bake a bit more quickly.

If you are using a smaller pan, it may take a bit longer. Also, if using a smaller pan, be careful not to fill past about ⅔ full to prevent it from overflowing.

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