October 10, 2018
Toffee Apple Cake!
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A two-layer toffee apple cake with apple cinnamon sponges, toffee buttercream frosting, and a delicious toffee themed topping!
Autumn!!
As its truly in the thick of Autumn now, I thought I would post something that tastes like Autumn in your mouth – not literally, who knows what that actually tastes like!
Toffee apples
Toffee apples are definitely autumnal. Halloween, bonfire night, covered in sticky chewy toffee, or these days covered in chocolate – either way, they’re a big hit and I am a huge fan.
I decided to make this toffee apple cake because as you can tell, toffee apples are one of my favourite things to make around Halloween time. They’re sticky and delicious, so this flavour as a cake – I didn’t need to think twice about doing this recipe!
Based on previous recipes
The cake is basically the exact same as my apple crumble cake, but without the crumble part. In a nutshell, I didn’t want to mess with a really successful and yummy sponge.
My apple crumble cake has been popular since I posted it, and often people just bake the sponge part because it bakes perfectly with the cooking apples inside with the smidge of cinnamon as well.
Butterscotch vs toffee
After posting my butterscotch cheesecake not so long ago, and explaining the difference between butterscotch and toffee in detail, I decided to skip over all of that and roll with ‘toffee apple’ rather than ‘butterscotch apple’ because everyone knows of a toffee apple. To be fair, when googling toffee apples, they are often called candy apples (oops) but you get the theme!
Because the sponge is wonderfully apple flavoured, I thought the only way to make the cake more toffee like without ruining the sponge, was to make the frosting toffee flavoured.
The first time I made this I used up the rest of my butterscotch sauce, and the second time I used toffee sauce from the supermarket. Both worked in the same way, and both were yummy.
Decoration
With the bake in the photographs, I decorated with some toffee sauce, bronze crunch sprinkles and some toffee coated popcorn – YUM!
When I have made this cake before and attended a bonfire night party with some close friends, I decorated the top of the cake with homemade toffee apples and it went down a treat!
It makes the cake more of a party showpiece but also, people were just helping themselves to the apples and loving them! So whatever your baking this cake for, you can really adapt the decoration to suit.
Apples
I used Bramley apples for the sponges. It’s important to using baking/cooking apples as other apples will be too soft when baking, however you can use whatever apple you like if you are going to make your own toffee apples for the decoration.
Making the bake Halloween themed
You can easily elevate this recipe into something a bit more spooky for Halloween by making the toffee apples red (with red food colouring) or string across some melted marshmallow to get a spiderweb effect.
Im sure you could always get some Halloween themed toffee flavoured sweets to use instead of popcorn but I personally think this looks utterly scrumptious as it is, but I get that some people will want to make this more Halloween themed! Enjoy!
Toffee Apple Cake!
Ingredients
Cake
- 500 g cooking apples (peeled & chopped weight)
- 300 g unsalted butter
- 300 g light brown sugar (+ 50g)
- 300 g self raising flour
- 6 medium eggs
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Buttercream
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 500 g icing sugar
- 100 ml toffee sauce
Toffee Apples/Decoration
- Toffee popcorn
- Sprinkles
- Toffee sauce
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan, and line two 8" tins with parchment paper.
- Peel and core the apples, and chop into 2cm size pieces.
- Cover the apples with the 50g extra light brown sugar and leave to the side for now.
- Beat together the unsalted butter and light brown sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in the self raising flour, eggs and cinnamon and beat until smooth - it won't take long at all.
- Fold through the apple, and separate between the two tins.
- Bake the cakes in oven for 40-45 minutes, or until baked through. A skewer should come out clean, and the cake shouldn't be making a bubbling sound.
- Leave the cakes to cool in the tins for 10 minutes or so, then move to a wire rack to cool fully.
For the Frosting
- Make sure your butter is at room temperature.
- Beat the butter on its own for a couple of minutes to make sure its nice and smooth.
- Add in the icing sugar 1/2 at a time, beating fully before adding in the rest.
- Add in the toffee sauce and beat again until its smooth and a lovely frosting has been formed!
For the Decoration
- Get your first cake, and pipe on half of the buttercream frosting.
- Add on the second cake, and pipe on more frosting.
- Top the cake with extra toffee sauce, some toffee popcorn and sprinkle over some cute sprinkles!
Notes
- I used bramley apples (baking/cooking apples) as they're the best to use - regular eating apples will be too soft.
- You can use my butterscotch sauce for the frosting, or buy toffee sauce from the supermarket.
- This cake will last for 3 days in a cake box at room temperature.
- Buy enough apples for about 700g worth, so once you have removed the core and peel you'll have about 500g worth of apple.
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J x
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Well this was a delight to bake and eat! Lovely autumnal cake. I couldn’t find toffee sauce so used ready made salted caramel sauce, and it still had a lovely toffee flavour to it. I’ll definitely be making it again.
Hi. I love to read reviews but never actually make one myself but I felt compelled to do one after making this cake for a Macmillan coffee morning on Friday. Everyone said how amazing it was, several people came up for second helpings and 2 of the staff said it is their new favourite cake. I kept the cake recipe exactly the same but did alter the filling, mainly because I’m not so keen on butter cream icing as I have got older. So I made a mascarpone and cream filling, still adding the caramel sauce to flavour it using your recipe for the sauce too. It was amazing. My new go to recipe. Thank you!!
Can you use dark brown sugar rather than light brown sugar?
Yes, you can!
I can only find caramel sauce in the supermarket -will this taste the same?
Hiya! Yes, this will be fine! Enjoy! x
Hello, can I use frozen bramley apple slices (from Aldi or Waitrose)?
Hiya! If they are uncooked, it should work well! Hope this helps! x
Made this for Halloween weekend and it was so delicious! Made the toffee sauce and it was really easy to do. Yummy cake!
Hi Jane,
Could I use the cooked Bramley’s I have in my freezer please?
Hiya! this is definitely worth go – however they may be too soft because of them already being cooked. Hope this helps! x
Hi Jane, I would love to make this for my Granny’s birthday. If I wanted to make it as a loaf cake what measurements would you recommend?
Hiya! Take a look at my Toffee Apple Loaf Cake recipe. Hope this helps! x
What toffee sauce did you use for this recipe please? I haven’t been able to find any anywhere apart from the stuff you put on ice cream and I’m not sure if that’s the right one? I’m desperate to make this as it sounds like me in cake form 😂
Hiya! You can use any from any supermarket! Or you can make your own using my sticky toffee cake recipe. Hope this helps! x
Hi,
This looks amazing! What supermarket did you get the toffee sauce from, I’ve just checked three online and only Tesco’s has it but it’s toffee dessert sauce, the Askey’s one you put on top of ice cream and I’m not sure this would be the right one to get for this.
Thanks!
So good. Made my own toffee sauce and everyone loved it
What size cake pans do you use ?
Always written in the method x
Hi Jane, how do you make the toffee apples “properly”? Do you just coat them in the butterscotch sauce or make them a different way so that they are hard?
If you want to do them properly I have a post just for them here – https://www.janespatisserie.com/2018/10/08/toffee-apples/
Amazing Cake, so delicious!
Shop bought toffee sauce didn’t work, couldn’t taste it at all. If I was to make it again I’d make my own sauce. Also you need about 3 baking apples & deep tins!
Oh dear, maybe the one you used wasn’t the best!
What depth tins do you use as this just exploded in my oven 😭
My tins are all at least 3.5″ deep – most ones I use for cakes are 4.5″ deep!
I’m just baking this now, wish I had read this comment, mine will probably explode as I’ve used sandwich tins!
Looks amazing. Would it work as a semi naked cake with drip decoration?
Hey do you think this cake would work for a fully decorated celebration cake or would it be too moist and collapse on me?
hiya! It should be fine, as long as you’ve chilled it before decorating! Hope this helps! x
Could you bake this in one tin instead of two and then half it? how much longer would it need to bake?
I’m afraid I don’t know, as I’ve never done it in one tin.
This looks amazing!!! Do you think the recipe would work to bake as cupcakes?
I’m sure it would! Have a look at my Apple crumble cupcakes post for timings and such x
Hi, could pears work instead of apples and if so would the other ingredients need to be altered?
Hiii! You can switch, but pears take less baking time, so might be a little softer!x
Jane, this looks absolutely scrump! 🍽 Please tell me there will be a “Vlog” for this forthcoming on YouTube! 😆
Hiya! THank you! Unfortunately, there probably won’t be a vlog as I don’t have any time!