I made this cake because I wanted to bake something using some of the gorgeous fall apples that are coming into season.
This post also coincides with National Apple Dumpling Day, which is September 17.
I’m also participating in Apple Week with a dozen other bloggers this week.
We’re all posting at least one new apple recipe this week on our blogs and this is my contribution for the week.
The cake also does double duty for my Banana Bread Fest series, my fourth banana bread recipe. Technically though, it’s not really banana bread.
It’s definitely more cake-like than bread-like, lighter and with a more delicate crumb and an airier texture than banana bread. However, the banana, in addition to the yogurt incorporated into the cake batter, really helps to keep it moist, soft, and tender.
The cake’s favor leans much more toward apple than banana, and the spices I used including cinnamon, ginger, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, and cloves accentuate and complement the flavor of the apples.
If you don’t keep all of those spices on hand, don’t worry about it and use what you do have.
I mixed up the batter by hand with a whisk, in one big bowl, by melting some butter, adding a little oil, sugar, eggs, yogurt, spices and whisking. After folding in some diced apples, mashed banana, and flour, the batter was ready in no time.
The selling point of this cake is not how easy it is to make or how the bits of apples in each bite are like little fruit surprises with a great chewy texture.
The selling point is the glaze.
I have made hundreds and hundreds of batches of glaze and frosting in my life and this vanilla caramel glaze is my number one favorite frosting or glaze, ever. It even surpasses chocolate-peanut butter buttercream and it’s hard to compete with chocolate + peanut butter + butter, but this glaze is my kryptonite.
If you like caramels, you’ll love it. It’s buttery, caramely, rich, smooth, decadent, sweet, and full of robust vanilla flavor. At room temperature, it stays soft and although it will set up and crystallize a tiny bit over time, it stays satiny and smooth.
Imagine biting into the creamiest, richest, most intense caramel that’s ever passed your lips, then infusing it with cream, sugar and vanilla, and then glazing a cake with it.
That’s what we have here and it makes store-bought jarred caramel sauce look like a pathetic excuse of a brown runny syrup that you’ll never be able to look at in quite the same way.
This recipe makes a generous-sized Bundt cake and since we didn’t need an entire cake just laying around, I sent half the cake with Scott, who was going back to his office after dinner to get some work done. He put out the cake at 9pm and apparently others in the building who were also working late had a case of the midnight munchies because he said that when went back into the breakroom a little after midnight, the entire cake was gone.
I guess they liked it.
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Spiced Apple and Banana Bundt Cake with Vanilla Caramel Glaze
Ingredients
Cake
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ cup canola or vegetable oil
- 5 ½ ounces vanilla or plain yogurt, one standard-sized small container; Greek yogurt is preferred, sour cream may be substituted
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 cup mashed ripe bananas, about 1 1/2 large bananas
- 1 cup finely diced apples, 1 medium apple; I used one unpeeled Gala apple
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
Vanilla Caramel Glaze
- Makes about 1 cup glaze, enough to generously glaze the cake
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted (half of 1 stick)
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 2 tablespoons cream or milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ to 2 cups+ confectioners’ sugar, sifted (must be sifted)
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350F and spray a 12-cup Bundt cake pan or tube cake pan very well with cooking spray (I usePam For Baking with Flour and it worked so well for me that this cake literally fell out of the pan while I was beginning to inverting it before I was properly set up to catch the cake on a cutting board) or grease and flour the pan; set aside.
- In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter, about 1 minute on high power. To the melted butter, add canola oil, yogurt, eggs, sugars, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, cloves (all spices should be added to taste and if you don’t have all of them on hand, not a big deal to omit some) and whisk until batter is smooth and silky, about 1 minute of vigorous whisking. Add the bananas, apples, and stir to combine. Add the flour, baking soda, salt, and stir until just combined, taking care not to over-mix and over-develop the gluten, which would result in a tougher cake. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about 39 to 43 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean (or insert a sharp long-blade chef’s knife and it should come out clean). Allow cake to cool in pan for at least 15 minutes before inverting it and removing cake.
- While cake is cooling, make the caramel sauce. Optionally, while cake is cooling poke approximately 25 holes in the top surface of the cake with a chopstick or popsicle stick. The holes will allow the glaze to seep into the cake’s interior, creating a delicious caramel-apple flavor; the drawback is that it’s not quite as pretty when sliced, but since you’re not likely going to take pictures of the cake’s interior surfaces, I’d poke the holes.
Vanilla Caramel Glaze
- Note: This is a fast moving recipe; have everything in place before you begin.
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. To the melted butter, add the brown sugar and bring to a boil, stirring nearly continuously. Allow the mixture to boil quite rapidly for 2 minutes, stirring nearly continuously. Remove the pan from the burner, allow it to cool for about 1 minute, and add the cream, taking caution because the mixture could bubble vigorously. Whisk aggressively to incorporate the cream and calm the bubbling.
- After the bubbling has subsided, add the vanilla and whisk to combine, using caution because the alcohol in the extract could cause the mixture to bubble up again. Add the confectioners’ sugar one-half cup at a time, until desired sauce consistency is reached (I absolutely recommend using sifted sugar so the glaze is whisks up smooth, silky, and free from lumps). Pour glaze over cake and allow it to set up for a few minutes if desired; or slice and serve immediately. Cake will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container at room temperature. If there is extra unused glaze, it can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month; gently reheat it in the microwave prior to glazing another dessert.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Related Recipes
Caramel Apple Bars (GF with vegan adaptation) – Caramely and gooey and the chunky apples pieces and oats give a great chewiness
Spiced Apple Pie Smoothie (vegan, GF)
Banana Bread with Vanilla Browned Butter Glaze – Week 1 of Banana Bread Fest
Zucchini Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting – Week 2 of Banana Bread Fest
Pumpkin Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting – Week 3 of Banana Bread Fest
Do you have any favorite apple recipes?
Feel free to link up your favorite apple recipes
Check out these ladies’ blogs this week for their apple recipes
Thanks for the Cooking With Trader Joe’s Cookbook Giveaway entries and have a great week!
Loving the mixture of flavors here! I seriously need a slice.
You and I must be on similar blog reader schedules because I am always right about to comment on your blog when I see a new comment from you. I feel guilty then and want you to know it’s not just a comment back! >< (Seriously, blogger guilt, is that even a thing?)
Girl I do that ALL THE TIME to people and then I think “I feel guilty then and want you to know it’s not just a comment back! ” –yes, happens to me a lot, actually!
I don’t have many apple recipes, and usually only use them to make apple sauce. I do want to make an apple pie at some point now that I have become less intimidated about making pie.
i’m so glad you’re participating in apple week because i LOVE apples and your recipes are always the very best. this looks fabulous!
Hi Averie
What condition was your bananas in when used them in this recipe? underripe, overripe, ripe etc.
ripe – updating the post now to reflect that
This cake looks amazing! I’m intrigued by the apple banana combo and I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t go wrong putting that frosting on anything – double YUM!
YES.
Love that you’re using apples, but also that you added in mashed banana for texture and moisture.
OF COURSE, love the glaze too!!!!
The glaze, the glaze. It’s epic. I think you’d love it…and would probably go well with your carrot cake (which I am still thinking about!)
I wish I found a cake like this hanging around my office! Apples are so “in” right now, and this cake looks utterly moist… oh man, now I want cake!!!
I think he’s popular at his office :)
This would be the perfect cake to sneak some fruit into my picky eater’s diet. She’d be so busy fussing over the Caramel glaze, she probably wouldn’t notice the apples until it was all gone! Pinned.
Thanks for the Pin and I have a couple more cakes/breads coming up (one each week for the next few) that involve either fruit or fruit + veg in cakes/breads. GREAT for the lil ones (or big ones) who may otherwise turn up their noses!
just send me that glaze!
heavens!
This is a gorgeous cake my dear–excellent photos.
I will gladly trade you my fall for your fall.
It’s too cold here and the sun is not as strong.
thanks for the photo compliments and your weather looks stunning there! It was 102F all weekend at the coast! Record breaking temps, so crazy – but I wasn’t complaining! Back down to about 80F today and you’d be in heaven :)
Stunning, to the MAX!
Now I have Raffi stuck in my head… please make it stop lol
What a gorgeous cake!
I have started to appreciate cinnamon much more in the last few months. Cold rice pudding with cinnamon is a favorite. Wonderful recipe!
just got a big jar of apple pie filling – any ideas for easy recipes (that aren’t pie?)
A million! But you could use it in these – use it rather than the jelly
https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2011/12/caramel-peanut-butter-jelly-bars.html (GF with Vegan adaptation)
Or these rather than the jelly
https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2012/09/peanut-butter-and-jelly-blondies.html
This looks AMAZING! Could I please just have a bowl (a large one) of that frosting with a slice of cake on the side? I love frosting and caramel and vanilla over apples and spices – perfect.
I love baking with apples, from simple apple crisps to apple pies and of course, our yearly batch of apple butter. It just comes with the autumn season!
Your apple butter sounds amazing – and I am hugely into caramel + vanilla + apples…and maybe top it with some apple butter :)