I love old fashioned cakes like Mom’s Best Apple Cake. It’s a soft, moist cake with lots of apples baked into it. There’s also a hot caramel sauce poured over the apple cake after it’s baked that makes this outrageously delicious!
I’ve been making an apple cake similar to this for about thirty years. I’ve got to tell you though, I like this one better. What makes this apple cake killer is the caramel topping you make and pour over the cake. Make the cake and after you let it cool, you make the caramel sauce and pour the hot caramel sauce over the apple cake. Uh huh, gooey delicious caramel over a moist apple-filled cake. *Sigh* You know you need this kids. It’s easy, fast to make and incredibly delicious.
To start the recipe for Mom’s Best Apple Cake preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a 13×9 inch baking pan.
Every cake recipe has wet cake batter ingredients and dry cake batter ingredients. This homemade apple cake recipe starts out by putting all the wet cake batter ingredients into a large bowl.
Now I know you’re looking at the wet ingredient list and thinking…why is the sugar in the wet ingredient list and not in the dry ingredient list? When making most homemade cake batters sugar is almost always considered a wet ingredient because it needs the wet ingredients in the recipe to dissolve and bake into the cake.
Wet Cake Batter Ingredients:
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups white sugar
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons vanilla
Beat the wet ingredients together until they are well incorporated.
Place the dry cake batter ingredients into a large bowl and swirl them together to combine.
Dry Cake Batter Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 Teaspoon baking soda
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat the two together until just incorporated. Ok, so why is it that you can beat the wet ingredients in a cake batter until they’re well incorporated but when it comes to adding the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients to make the cake batter, you only beat them into the wet ingredients until “just incorporated“?
Are you still with me? The dry ingredients contain flour, the longer you beat flour into a cake batter the more gluten you produce. The more gluten you produce the tougher the cake will be.
Unless the cake recipe specifies otherwise, place all the dry ingredients into a bowl and swirl them together before you add them to the wet ingredients. If you’re adding the dry ingredients as you measure them out, one by one to the bowl of wet ingredients and you are beating each dry ingredient into the wet ingredients separately, your beating longer than you need to.
If you have the dry ingredients measured out and swirled together, your beating one time instead of several times with the addition of each dry ingredient. Does that make sense? Ok, I promise I’m done being long-winded, but it is about the best apple cake so I’m sure you understand!
Stir 3 cups of peeled, diced baking apples into the cake batter.
Pour the cake batter into your greased and floured 13×9 inch baking pan.
Bake the cake 55 – 60 minutes or until it tests done with a toothpick. Cool the cake completely on a wire rack before making the topping.
Cake Topping Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup milk
Combine the butter, brown sugar and milk in a medium-size saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture boils. Boil without stirring for 3 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and immediately spread the topping over the cake. Let the cake sit an hour before serving.
Mom’s Best Apple Cake, a tender moist and delicious homemade caramel-topped apple cake that’s irresistible, ENJOY!
PIN IT FOR LATER
Looking For More Recipes From Bunny’s Warm Oven, Try These!
Apple Pan Dowdy…Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins…Carrot Cake Cheesecake…Sour Cream Lemon Pie…Pecan Cream Cheese Pie
Mom's Best Apple Cake
The ingredients for this Mom’s Best Apple Cake are so simple and it comes out perfect every time! This is the only Apple Cake Recipe you will ever need.
Servings: 12 servings
Calories: 567kcal
Ingredients
Cake Batter:
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 Teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups baking apples, peeled and diced
Caramel Topping:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup milk
- (If you would prefer to add cinnamon to the cake, add 1 tsp to the dry ingredients)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 13x9 in baking pan.For the cake: In a large mixing bowl, beat together the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until well incorporated. Place the flour, salt, and baking soda into a large bowl and swirl together. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients (oil,sugar,eggs, vanilla) until just incorporated. Stir in the apples.Pour the cake batter into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 55 – 60 minutes. Cool completely before adding the topping.For the topping:In a saucepan, combine the butter, brown sugar, and milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture boils. Boil without stirring for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and immediately spread over the top of the cooled cake. Let sit for an hour prior to serving.
Video
Nutrition
Serving: 8g | Calories: 567kcal | Carbohydrates: 101g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Cholesterol: 92mg | Sodium: 564mg | Potassium: 102mg | Sugar: 77g | Vitamin A: 455IU | Calcium: 49mg | Iron: 2mg
Did you make this recipe?I'd love to see your pictures on Instagram! Mention @bunnyswarmoven or tag #bunnyswarmoven!
Looking for more apple cake recipes, try these from other bloggers…Italian Apple Cake…German Apple Cake
Looks absolutely delicious, and I hope to make it later this week. Do you know if the cake will work as well if I use applesauce instead of diced apples? I used to have my own, small orchard, with more apples every fall than I could use. But life changes, and now I am working from the many jars of applesauce that I canned in better times. Thank you.
Thank you for posting this recipe. I had high hopes after reading the reviews. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the cake for me. Whilst easy to prepare and baked up well, it was far too sweet. This was without the addition of the topping. For all those with a big sweet tooth, I would say give it a try as it is simple to assemble and bakes beautifully.
Last night I tried an appl cake recipe. It was awful!!! Today I debated about trying another. After much searching and comparing different recipes, I decided on this one. I must say it is DELICIOUS!!! I added walnuts and cinnamon. I have not made the sauce yet but the cake is great as is!!!!!
Joann I don’t post anything on this blog I don’t absolutely love. I feel like I have a responsibility to give you the best of whatever I make and share. I hate wasting ingredients and wouldn’t want you to do the same. I love comments like yours, it really makes my day. The addition of walnuts and cinnamon sounds wonderful! Thank you so much for coming to visit me and letting me know you made and loved it, it makes my day!
Just made this cake. Very easy to prepare an my first time at Carmel sauce which I’ve always wanted to make. Thank you for this recipe. I do have a sweet tooth so no problem with eating it. Taking to a dinner tonight.. hope they feel the same way as I do. It’s beautiful!!
Your welcome Annette, let me know what the dinner guests thought!
Can you use selfrising flour?
Doris here’s a link about substituting self rising flour for regular flour. You can only do that if the recipe has baking powder in it. This one has baking soda. https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2015/09/09/substitute-self-rising-flour-purpose-flour/
I made this today and it turned out terrible. First the cake did not have much taste at all. Second when the apples were added in there was not enough batter ( my batter was like a cookie dough) to cover all the apples. What kind of flour are you supposed to use? AP or self rising?
LuLu I don’t understand why it didn’t work for you. As far as the taste goes, there are 3 cups of apples in the cake, it should have had a nice apple flavor as well as being very moist with the juice from the apples in the cake. If you look at the video of the recipe, you’ll see that the cake has a cake batter consistency not a cookie dough consistency.
Absolutely the best apple cake ever. Scrumshie doodle!!
I love how the cake bakes crispy on the top, a crunch without the crunch. Didn’t put the caramel sauce on because the cake was sweet enough and the apples I used were sweet as well ….maybe next time. Definitely a keeper! Thank you so much for sharing 🤗🤗
Nova this is one of my favorites! Thank you for taking the time to come back and comment, it’s so helpful to others who may want to try the recipe!
Made this cake today and it was delicious. Just wondering if you had any suggestions on cutting back on the sugar? It tasted great just the thought of 2 cups of sugar seems like a lot! Do you think just using a cup would throw off the recipe too much?
I’m just not sure Rebecca. I’ve always made it per the recipe directions. What kind of apples did you use? If they were a more tart apple , try using a sweeter apple and cut back on the sugar.
Just wanted to say that I receive a lot of excess apples at work sometimes and have made nearly every apple recipe out there. I came across this on Pinterest and (of course) made it. It has been the most complimented apple dish in 3 years!! Thank you so much for putting this recipe out there to share 🙂 It’s not letting me rate at the moment, but 5 HUGE stars!
Thank you Ashton!! I appreciate you taking the time to come back and comment!
Hi I made this cake and we really loved it. However, the cake seemed to be too wet. I used the amount of apples suggested. So I’m wondering if it was the apples or possibly the caramel sauce. Maybe I didn’t let the cake cool enough before adding the sauce. If I make this again, what is your opinion?
What kind of apples did you use Reathel? Baking apples like Mcintosh are wonderful in cakes.
I made this yesterday for our Sunday family dinner and my hubby had a piece last night and said WOW, excellent cake. I tried a bite and it’s very good, moist and the added cinnamon makes it even better. I used my own caramel sauce recipe, I’ve made it many times so Just stayed with a recipe I know. Thank you for sharing your recipe, I’ll be serving it tonight for my sons and families.
Wonderful Val! Thank you for taking the time to comeback and comment , I really appreciate it!
This looks perfectly gooey and delicious! Love the caramel topping!
Looks amazing. Now I am totally craving a nostalgic cake like this.
Thank you Matt!
This cake looks amazing! So moist and just perfect – what a great recipe!!
this looks amazing, I love recipes that have been passed down through generations! So many of the recipes I make are either my mum’s or grandmas! this looks so cozy!
Thank you Georgie!
Sounds tasty with the caramel sauce on top. Apple works so well in cakes.
WOW!! This cake is just WOW!! It was so easy to put together, it was so moist and my wife and I didn’t feel it was overly sweet. Thanks for sharing the recipe. Oh yeah and for once I felt the picture actually matched what we made. I seen a recipe above for a cream cheese apple cake. Here’s my email address would you please share it? [email protected]. Thanks again for a great cake Tim.
Thank you Tim!
Took this cake to a funeral dinner snd I had six calls that night for the recipe! Delicious!!!!
Sorry for your loss Kelli. That’s amazing about the cake! Thank you for coming back to let me know!
Added an extra cup of apples it is the best cake recipient I have ever made.
Thank you Jason, I’m so happy you enjoyed it!
Since it is only me and the hubby, I did half the recipe using two eggs for an 8×8 dish! Easy peasy apple please me! This recipe is for a fall Sunday desert! It was so easy and tastes awesome. Thank you for the recipe!!
Thank you Barbara!
Amazing cake! Made it tonight for a second time this week! Do I have to wait 1 hour after adding the caramel topping or can I serve it right after adding the topping?
Thanks again for this recipe! 😊
Marie you can serve it after you add the caramel topping if you want to. It’s your kitchen Darlin, you can do either way.