October 9, 2019
Apple Crumble Traybake Cake!
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A delicious spiced apple crumble traybake cake with a sweet apple & cinnamon sponge, and a homemade crumble on top!
Apple crumble cake
It’s October, it’s getting colder… and I am in the mood for crumble. Again, I have avoided posting an actual apple crumble recipe as I have completely forgotten to, but we will get there! This however… this is epic.
This beautiful recipe is based on my apple crumble cake which has always been a hit at this time of year, with so many of my readers having apple trees and needing to use them up, and the apples being so cheap in the shops… it’s perfect!
Traybake cakes
I decided to post a traybake version of the cake, as traybake cakes seem to be so unbelievably popular for me at the moment, so I am going to run with it whilst I can. They’re so easy to do, they are perfect for a crowd, and you can basically just whack it all in the tin!
I use this amazing tin for my traybakes as I find it’s the perfect size – when you go to a supermarket to buy a ‘traybake cake’ you will find that they are nearly always a rectangle in shape, so that’s what I stick with for my traybake cakes!
Tin
You will notice that these traybake tins differ from the ‘traybake’ tins I use for my brownies and such like though. This is because for all things brownie, cookie bar, or millionaires, I love to use a 9×9″ square tin.
If you have the 9×9″ square tin, you won’t be able to use that for this, as the volume difference between the two really is quite significant. I often see it where I have posted a cake for an 8″ round tin for example, and someone has put it into a 10″ tin thinking it won’t make too much of a difference… when in reality, it’s 1.6x bigger!
For this cake, it really is much better to stick to the guided tin, and you shouldn’t have an issue! Don’t get me wrong, as long as you use all the rest of the correct ingredients, and your oven is the correct temp, you will be fine.
Apples
Sometimes baking with apples can be a lil’ funky… but that’s why I recommend cooking apples. If you use a regular eating/snacking apple, they will go soft far too quickly. Bramley/cooking apples take longer to break down, which is important when you are baking this cake. The cake is in for an hour or so, so the apples need to be able to withstand that!
Crumble
For the crumble, I have written a recipe to make it yourself below – it’s best to have cold butter, so it can rub together and create a crumb like structure rather than a smush of ingredients.. but you can easily switch it to shop bought crumble. There’s no shame in it – it’s so much easier. I just like to make this one all homemade!
Best served with…
When it comes to serving a beauty like this, I recommend having something such as ice cream and a drizzle of caramel, or custard, or even cream! Literally anything that you would normally have with regular apple crumble would work perfectly with this! Enjoy! x
Apple Crumble Traybake Cake!
Ingredients
Crumble
- 120 g plain flour
- 60 g caster sugar
- 60 g unsalted butter
Cake
- 500 g cooking apples (peeled & chopped weight)
- 300 g unsalted butter
- 300 g light brown sugar (50g extra for the apples)
- 300 g self raising flour
- 6 medium eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Decoration
- 100 g icing sugar
- 1-3 tbsp water
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
For the Crumble
- Rub together the sugar, flour and butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, leave to the side for now.
For the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan and line a 9x13" traybake tin.
- Peel and core the apples, cube the apples into about 2cm pieces.
- Put the apples into a bowl, and cover with 50g of light brown sugar. Mix it up so all the apple pieces are covered and leave to the side.
- Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in the flour, eggs, vanilla and cinnamon and beat until smooth. Fold through the apple mixture and pour the mixture into the tin!
- Sprinkle the crumble mixture onto the cake!
- Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes or until baked through (Can take a little less, or a little more than an hour - depends on your oven, see tips below)
- Leave the cake to cool in the tins for 10-15 minutes and then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
For the Decoration
- Once the cake has cooled - stir together the icing sugar and cinnamon, and then as much water as you like - I like it thick and drizzly!
- Enjoy!
Notes
- I estimate this recipe to use about 3-4 apples from the supermarket. From my garden, as they're smaller, I used 5!
- Some oven temperatures can vary even if you set it to the ‘correct temperature’. You can tell if a cake is well and truly done by testing them with a skewer, and seeing if it comes out clean. HOWEVER, you need to also listen to the cake, if its still making a crackling/bubbling sound then its not quite done. Keep baking till that sound goes away!
- I reeeeally would recommend using COOKING apples for this rather than regular eating apples because of the length of time the cake is baking for. If you used regular apples, there is a chance they’d turn to mush, and then the cake wouldn’t bake well either. The lovely bright green cooking apples are the ones you’re after!
- You could also use a ready made crumble mix if you like as well as it does save time, but you’ll still need to bake it on top of the cake in the same way, and bake the spare in the same way as well!
- This cake will last in an airtight container for up to 3 days!
ENJOY!
Find my other Cake Recipes on my Recipes Page!
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J x
© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.
This was a hit with everyone. Lovely cake and incredibly easy to make
Can I make this with gluten free flour? Are there any changes I would need to make?
If I were to quarter this for an 8×4 loaf pan, could you or anyone else advise on how I should adjust baking time/temperature? x
If freezing this, would you put the drizzle on before?
Hiya! You can do either. Hope this helps! x
Made this yesterday. Left out cinnamon. It was sbsolutely delicious. Made janes toffee sauce to accompany it.
Left to cool overnight and then cut. A bit stodgy but is that due to the apples? Tested cake for being cooked and fine. Also, tastes lovely and heated in microwave for 20 seconds
Hiya! This cake is naturally denser because of the apple – but im glad you loved it! Enjoy! x
Could I freeze this cake?
Hiya! Absolutely you can, for up to 3 months! Hope this helps! x
Could you replace the cooking apples with dried apple pieces?
Hiya! I have not tried this myself – but it is definitely worth a go! Let me know! x
First time making this recipe and the cake is perfect, really scrummy. Had a slice warm with a cuppa and hoping to have a slice with custard! Brilliant recipe – many thanks!! X
Hi Jane , just made this cake now using shop bought crumble. Cake was only in 37 minutes but top is all burnt. Noticed that shop bought crumble says cook 25 mins. If I do this recipe again would it be ok to take cake out halfway and add crumble then?
Beautiful recipe. I added in a punnet of blackberries foraged from my garden (before the birds gobble them up)?as well as homegrown cooking apples and the cake was delicious! Sometimes apple cakes can become a bit dry but this was moist and light as a feather.
I made a tiny version (25% of the ingredients – 2 small eggs – used a loaf tin!) to use up two gala apples that had sat in the fruit bowl for too long. Cut the apple slightly larger to allow for the fact it’d soften more than bramley and it was delicious 😋. Kids loved having squares in their lunchbox this week.
Could I use granny smiths for this and do I need to sieve the brown sugar?
You can try Granny Smiths but they may become too soft – no I never sieve brown sugar xx
Could I half the recipe and bake this in an 8″ tin?
Yes!
Hi Jane, what would the measurements be if I was using a 9×9 tin? Don’t have a 9×13 one in the house. Thanks 😊
I would use 2/3 of the recipe! x
Hi Jane I love your recipes 😊. I’ve done a couple of your cheesecake ones & they turned out lovely.
Could you halve the amount then bake it in a 9×9″ tin .
I would use 2/3 of the recipe! x
This! Just wow! I made this as one of those lockdown leave on family’s doorsteps… Well only 4 of the slices made it out to family… I’m a little embarrassed to say my partner and I ate the rest to ourselves!
We preferred them when they were cool but did also have them with custard. Delicious!
Hi Jane,
I have frozen apple slices, would these be ok please ?
I’m unsure – they may be too thin compared to chunks (and also depends on the type of apple) but it’s worth a go!
Just wondering if this could be frozen for later. I can’t eat a whole tray bake on my own!
Yes it can! X
Very pleased with bake! It looked very similar to picture and tasted great 😋 used apples from my Mums tree and could’ve cut them a bit bigger. The only thing I don’t know is ‘ CAN YOU FREEZE THEM’ ??? before I eat then all 😄 X
Hiya! So glad you loved it! Yes you can freeze this – hope this helps! Team Jane x
Hi I hate cinnamon lol if I just left it out would the cake still taste OK or a bit bland ? Could you replace it with anything else.
Hi Jane,
I’ve just got mine in the oven now but there was way too much mixture for my tin & it was the correct size. I’ve had enough left to make 6 cupcakess with the rest plus crumble. Is that normal?
That’s really strange – as the tin sized listed is correct. It might be that your tin is too shallow!
I made this cake yesterday and it was faultless! I usually don’t like apples in cakes but this was delicious, will definitely be making this again x
Hey Jane, could i add caramel sauce like in your other apple pie recipe ?
Thanks zoe
I wouldn’t to the cake itself – but for decoration yes. x
Hi, the cake cooked before the crumble so that is still like uncooked crumbs what did I do wrong?
My drizzle was very brown because of the cinnamon, not white like in your photos…
As long as it didn’t affect the taste, the colour shouldn’t matter x
I made the rhubarb crumble cake, had none left to freeze in my house 😅
Hi Jane, I unfortunately don’t have cooking apples but I have both Granny Smiths and golden delicious. Which would work better? Thanks! X
Unfortunately both my dissolve a bit too much in the baking (which is why cooking apples are better) but other than that either should be ok!
wouldn’t say apple is my fav dessert but OMG this warm with custard is so comfort food a must xx
Hey! Would love to make this as a loaf cake (2lb tin), do you know what measurements for the ingredients I would need? X
Hey! Have a look at my toffee apple loaf cake for help! x
I baked this with my 5 year old today and it was delicious, what a clever idea! The light crumble on top is great, the Apple goes so well with the cinnamon and it came out really well. The only thing I did wrong was lacked patience and drizzled the icing sugar over the top before the cake was completely cooled. So my tip would be to wait until it’s completely cooled, which probably goes without saying! Thank you for another great recipe!!
Just made this to use up some Bramley apples someone bought by mistake – great decision!! It took about 15 minutes longer to cook in our oven but everyone loves it – which is good as it’s huge! Thanks for the recipe!
I’m really no good at baking but every recipe is so easy to follow and they taste great!!
Hi Jane, I am struggling to get soft light brown sugar. Is there an alternative sugar that you would recommend please? Thankyou
You can use caster sugar, golden caster, or dark brown! x
Was looking for something to bake for my mom to bring into work to thank our frontline workers during this difficult time.. Even though I made a small mistake (putting in 300g of apples rather than 500g!) , this recipe is absolutely divine!! I wouldn’t usually like apple crumbles but this one is absolutely gorgeous! I am sure her colleagues will thoroughly enjoy it, I will have to make another for myself
Thank you so much Jane for this xx
Hello, this may be a very silly question but is the total amount of light brown sugar 350g or 300g?
Is 50g used to coat the apples and then 300g in the cake mix?
Thank you 🙂
Yes it’s 350g total! X
Love this can it be frozen as have loads left?
Yes it can!
Made this yesterday and the family all loved it! Such a great idea, combining two of my favourite desserts!
Ahh yay! So glad it was a hit!!
One of the best cakes I’ve had! Light and refreshing
So glad you liked it!!
Can i freeze this pleeeease?
It may go a little softer after thawing, but yes!
Delicious, thoroughly enjoyed by colleagues at our charity bake off! Thank you!
Hi Jane just literally baking this now. Just wondering would it be fine to freeze it?? Love your recipes
Thanks,
Carly
Hi Jane
I have just made this with my 4 year old daughter while the dinner was cooking! The kids love a home made cake to take into school for their lunches and to share with the teachers!!! I have a 4,7 & 9 year olds and they love to also bake!!! Thank you for another fantastic recipe xx
Ohh that is just the cutest!! Thank you!! x
I have sooo many blackberries from my garden in my freezer, could I use some of those as well and if so how much do you recommend? Or do you think it may make the cake soggy? thanks
You can definitely give it a go – it will make the cake softer and may make it take longer to bake – I would take out probably 150g apple, and add the blackberries in! x