Salted caramel apple cake is filled with apples, drizzled with salted caramel, and finished off with a cream cheese frosting and more salted caramel.
This apple cake is a very moist and dense cake filled with shredded apples and melted butter. Doesn’t look all that moist but it’s super moist. It’s such an easy apple caramel cake that’s just perfect for the fall and holidays.
You can experiment with this recipe and throw in some diced apples as well but I prefer shredding the apples. You can certainly do a combination of shredded and diced apples. This recipe makes 3 8-inch layers and feeds up to 8 people. I made a cream cheese frosting for this cake but feel free to add a 1/4 tsp of cinnamon to the cream cheese frosting for a cinnamon cream cheese frosting.
Tips for Customizing your Salted Caramel Apple Cake
You may also make buttercream or salted caramel frosting. I tried them all and think that a simple cream cheese frosting works best here.
Make sure to let the caramel cool completely before drizzling the cake with it so it doesn’t melt the cream cheese frosting.
Salted Caramel Apple Cake (with video)
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup melted unsalted butter 2 sticks
- 1 tbsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 4 cups brown sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 3 apples shredded
Salted Caramel:
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 4 tbsp salted butter
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 4 ounces unsalted butter
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp whole milk
Instructions
- To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a large bowl, combine the melted butter, brown sugar, vanilla extract, shredded apples, and eggs.
- Fold in the all-purpose flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Distribute the batter evenly amongst 3 buttered 8-inch cake pans.
- Bake for 27 minutes or until done.
- Let the cakes cool completely.
- To make the cream cheese frosting, mix the unsalted butter and cream cheese using an electric whisk for 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in the vanilla extract and whole milk and mix on high for 2 minutes or until nice and fluffy.
- To make the salted caramel, cook the sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves completely and turns into a copper color.
- Stir in the butter using a whisk until it melts completely.
- Stir in the heavy cream slowly while whisking.
- Cook for an additional minute.
- Stir in the salt.
This was a huge hit with our family. Visually it’s perfection ! The cake itself was delicious. Our family all asked for a piece to take home and for a copy of your recipe. I will definitely make this again. Thanks !
So happy you and your family enjoyed this cake 🙂