Apple Coffee Cake

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Sundays are a special day in our home. It’s the day that makes me feel the most blessed. We typically do a special breakfast that day too. Not always, but I genuinely enjoy making something a little special that day. I don’t like it to be too difficult though. Special but not complicated. A lot of times that means I throw together some sort of carb heavy breakfast. Cakes, pancakes, waffles, etc. We pair it with eggs though so at least we get a little protein too! This apple coffee cake recipe is one of our absolute favorites for Sunday (and any other day honestly). 

The Original Apple Coffee Cake Recipe

This recipe came from a book close to home. When my grandma passed away we got majority of her recipes. They are special and I wanted to be making some of the same recipes that she did. I’ve found some that were heavily used simply by the way that the recipe looked. I can’t honestly tell if she used this one or not but I know the book meant a great deal to her. She taught at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church for many, many years. This was a cookbook that was sold to support the church. 

It was originally submitted by Irene Marklevitz. Again, I include their name so if someday their kids, grandkids, or great grandkids search for their name they might find this. I can only consider it an honor that someone would be making their recipes for years to come. I get a lot of enjoyment out of researching my past and I hope that, if they find this, it’s a cherished part of their past too. 

Apple Variety

Are you wondering what type of apples to use? Well, I was too. There are definitely some better flavors of apples for pie filling, baking, applesauce, etc. However, I tend to lean more toward using what you have. I used a big mix of apples for this recipe. They were small so I cut up 4 of them and they were all different varieties. They all tasted wonderfully.

One other thing to note, I did peel my apples. This wasn’t listed as a necessary step in the book but I deemed it necessary for me. I’m sure you would be absolutely fine to just dice up the apples and throw them in with the skins on them. The apples will have a slightly different texture to them is all. I’m sure one of these days I’ll be in a hurry and won’t “have time” to peel mine. At that point, I’ll update and give you another review to make sure it’s good this way too. 

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups oil 
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 3 cups sifted flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup coconut (optional)
• 1 cup nuts
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups chopped apples

Directions

• Beat the oil, sugar, and eggs together. 

• Add the remaining ingredients and mix together. You can use a hand mixer or mix by hand.
• Spread in a greased pan.
• Bake at 325 for one hour. 

The original recipe also says that it is good with Cool Whip on top. We don’t typically keep Cool Whip on hand so we haven’t tried that quite yet. 

Tips

This is one of the recipes I didn’t follow to a T. It came out incredible though.

One, I would never use that much oil! That just seems crazy to me. Instead I used ½ cup butter, ½ cup oil, and ½ cup milk. It was perfectly moist and didn’t have nearly as much fat in it. That just seemed a little excessive to me.

Two, I did not add the nuts. I just don’t love nuts. I don’t need things to be crunchy. I think this would be good with some walnuts or pecans, but I also don’t prefer them. If you are one of those people that likes nuts I’m sure it will be just as good with them added. 

Three, we also did not use the coconut. I’m getting better with coconut and being able to include it but it’s not my favorite either. It tends to be chewy and has a different texture. It’s okay but, again, I didn’t see it being worth adding. 

Four, I added my soft crumb topping to this. When I got done making the cake portion I just looked at it for a couple of minutes. It was too plain! Now, we could have added the Cool Whip like Irene suggested but we didn’t have any on hand. Perhaps someday when we have a milk cow we’ll make our own whipped cream to add to this recipe. 

In Summary: Apple Coffee Cake Recipe

This apple coffee cake recipe is absolutely incredible. It’s a 10/10 hit. I’m absolutely certain it will become more regular in the rotation around here. I can only imagine how delicious it is going to taste in the fall when we have super fresh apples right off of the trees in our backyard. 

The first time we made this it was December 2021 and we were still using apples from the fall. We had preserved them in the basement but their time was getting cut short. Like our potatoes, I realized it was just too warm down there for them. This caused me to scramble to find places in the fridge for some but also use up some of the others. They were given to us by a friend so we didn’t pay for them but I also just really hate waste. Instead of wasting them we made the best choice putting them into this apple coffee cake. My husband ate it all week for his breakfast and raved about it almost every day.

What is your favorite flavor of coffee cake? Apples, berries, jam…we like them all around here!