Apple Cider Donut Cake
A tender, light cake with the subtle taste of an apple cider donut, complete with cinnamon sugar on top!
Servings: 12
Calories: 355kcal
Equipment
- Bundt cake pan (12 cup)
- immersion blender (or regular blender)
- Microplane zester
Ingredients
Apple Cider Mixture
- 1 large or 2 small apples (227 grams/8 ounces) (use anything with a lot of tart flavor)
- 1 ½ cup apple cider (360 grams)
- ½ cup milk (120 grams)
Cake Batter
- 2 ½ cups flour (300 grams)
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated is best!)
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick/ 113 grams), softened
- ¾ cup sugar (148 grams)
- ½ cup brown sugar (105 grams)
- 3 eggs
- ¼ cup vegetable oil (56 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (5 grams)
Cinnamon Sugar Topping
- 6 tablespoons sugar (75 grams)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
Apple Cider Mixture
- Peel, core, and chop your apples. Combine with apple cider in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer over medium heat for 10-12 minutes, until apples are tender. The mixture will foam up when it boils.
- Cool for 5 minutes, then puree, preferably with an immersion blender. Reducing the cider takes me about 35 minutes, from chopping to pureeing. Your puree may be liquidy.
- Combine 1 cup (about 236 grams) of apple mixture with milk. The milk will curdle like buttermilk.
Cake
- Combine flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and nutmeg in a mixing bowl. Set aside.
- Cream butter with sugar and brown sugar in stand mixer on medium speed using the paddle attachment for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs, one by one, mixing after each addition.
- Add oil and vanilla, and mix for another minute, until well mixed.
- Alternate adding the flour and apple mixtures in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape the bottom of the mixer bowl to make sure butter and sugar isn’t stuck there (like it was in mine). Mix for 10 more seconds to make sure everything is airy and light.
- Pour batter into an extremely well greased Bundt cake pan and bake at 350F for 35-50 minutes.
- Cool cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto cake platter. I had a piece stick to my cake pan the first time I made it, so be sure you’ve greased it really well.
Cinnamon Sugar
- Combine sugar, and cinnamon. Coat cake with cinnamon sugar, patting it on the sides by hand
- Cool completely (or at least 45 minutes, as I did) before cutting.
Notes
This cake has a subtle apple flavor. You can reduce the apple cider even more if desired.
Choose the most flavorful apples you can find. I usually don't peel mine because they get blended with the cider, but peel them if you're concerned.
Use freshly grated nutmeg if at all possible. Its flavor is much better than preground nutmeg.
Mixing the batter for so long beats a lot of air into the batter and makes the cake incredibly fluffy.
The high butter and oil content in this cake makes it very tender.
You can add ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg to the cinnamon sugar mixture, if desired.
I had about ⅔ cup of apple puree left. Eat later with oatmeal, in smoothies, or on its own.
Mine took 35 minutes exactly in my oven, even though my apple mixture was very thin, but some people have said the cake takes longer.
Adapted from Serious Eats.
Recipe revised slightly 9/7/2025.
Calorie count calculated in MyNetDiary and is an estimate only.
Nutrition
Calories: 355kcal
