Apple Bundt Cake

Apple Bundt Cake is a moist, tender, and absolutely irresistible dessert packed with fresh Granny Smith apples, warm cinnamon, and topped with a luscious homemade caramel glaze. It’s the perfect fall treat that’s surprisingly easy to make and always impresses!

Love More Desserts Recipes? Try My Buttermilk Pumpkin Pound Cake or this Pecan Pie Dump Cake next.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

The texture stays incredibly moist for days, the cinnamon adds just enough warmth without screaming “pumpkin spice everything,” and that caramel glaze ties it all together beautifully. No creaming butter for ten minutes, no complicated techniques—just mix, fold, bake, and drizzle. Plus, the Bundt pan does all the decorating work for you, so even if you’re not a fancy baker, this looks impressive every time.

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Ingredient List

For the Cake:

• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1½ cups vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and diced

For the Caramel Glaze:

• ½ cup (1 stick / 113 g) unsalted butter
• 2 teaspoons heavy cream (room temperature)
• ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Substitution Notes:

• Apples: Only use Granny Smith unless you hate yourself, but fine use Honeycrisp if you must
• Oil: This is non-negotiable, don’t even think about butter
• Heavy cream: Half-and-half works I’ve done it a million times
• Light brown sugar: Dark brown if you want it tasting more molasses-y I guess

Why These Ingredients Work

My mom always made everything with butter because that’s what her mom did. But oil is literally the only reason this cake stays moist past day one. Butter gets all hard and firm when it’s cold which makes cakes dry and sad. Oil doesn’t do that so your cake’s still perfect three days later.

Granny Smith apples don’t fall apart into baby food when you bake them. Learned this the expensive way after trying three other kinds that all turned into weird apple pudding inside my cake. They’re also sour so the cake doesn’t taste like you dumped an entire bag of sugar in there even though you kinda did.

Room temp eggs seemed super extra and unnecessary until I threw cold eggs in once and watched my batter separate into gross lumps. Now I just leave them on the counter while I’m digging through my disaster of a cabinet looking for the Bundt pan.

Brown sugar has molasses which is the whole reason caramel tastes like caramel and not just melted butter with sugar.

Essential Tools and Equipment

Stuff you actually need:

• 9-inch Bundt pan (mine’s beat to hell but still works)
• Large mixing bowl
• Medium mixing bowl
• Hand mixer (stand mixer if you have one cool)
• Whisk
• Rubber spatula
• Small saucepan
• Wire cooling rack
• Toothpick
• Non-stick spray (the expensive kind not the garbage dollar store stuff)

How To Make Apple Bundt Cake

Step 1: Prep Your Pan and Preheat

Oven to 325°F. Now spray that Bundt pan like you’re trying to ruin it. Every single ridge, every annoying little groove, that center tube thing, all of it. I’m dead serious about this because I’ve thrown entire cakes in the trash after they stuck and broke into a thousand pieces. Use way more spray than seems reasonable or even slightly sane.

Step 2: Mix the Wet Ingredients

Chuck the sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs in your big bowl. Turn the mixer on and beat it for like a minute until it looks smooth. Gonna be really liquidy and that’s completely normal don’t freak out.

Step 3: Prepare the Dry Ingredients

Dump your flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in the other bowl and whisk it around. I used to skip this step because I’m lazy but then I’d get a massive cinnamon clump in one bite and nothing in the next bite so just do it.

Step 4: Combine Wet and Dry

Pour all the flour stuff into the wet stuff and stir until you barely can’t see flour anymore. Stop stirring even if it looks lumpy and weird. Keep going and you’ll have a dense tough cake that nobody wants to eat.

Step 5: Fold in the Apples

Get your spatula and fold in the apple chunks nice and gentle. Batter’s gonna be thick like brownie batter which stops all the apples from sinking to the bottom.

Step 6: Fill and Bake

Pour it all in the greased pan and smooth the top sorta. Smack it on the counter a couple times to get bubbles out. Set timer for 55 minutes but might need like 70 depending if your oven’s a lying liar. Mine’s always done at 62 but yours could be totally different.

Step 7: Cool the Cake

Take it out when toothpick has some crumbs on it. Now here’s where you prove you have patience – don’t touch it for 15-20 minutes. Just let it sit there. I’ve flipped it early like an idiot and ended up serving cake pieces instead of cake slices. After waiting forever, put your rack on top, flip it all over, lift the pan off, cross your fingers and maybe say a prayer.

Step 8: Make the Caramel Glaze

While the cake’s making you wait, throw butter, cream, and brown sugar in a pot on medium heat. Let it bubble, stir it every once in a while until sugar melts. Maybe 3-4 minutes depending.

Step 9: Finish the Glaze

Pull it off heat and stir vanilla in. Let it just sit there for 5-10 minutes. Looks really watery at first but gets thicker. Pour it on too soon and it’ll run right off your cake like you dumped water on it.

Step 10: Glaze and Serve

When cake’s warm not hot and glaze is thicker, pour it everywhere. So satisfying watching it run down those ridges. You’re supposed to wait 10 minutes but I always cut into it at like 5 because I have zero self control.

You Must Know

Leave your eggs and cream sitting out for half an hour before starting. Cold eggs make your batter look curdled and nasty and cold cream turns your butter into weird little chunks floating around in the glaze.

SPRAY THAT PAN UNTIL YOU FEEL GUILTY ABOUT WASTE. This is the hill I’m dying on because I’ve rage-cried over stuck cakes too many times.

Start checking at 55 minutes don’t just trust the recipe. Every oven’s different and mine lies constantly. Want moist crumbs on that toothpick not bone dry because dry toothpick means dry cake.

Personal Secret: Baker’s Joy saved my relationship with Bundt cakes. It’s spray with flour already in it and I literally haven’t had a stuck cake since I found it. Buy it immediately.

Pro Tips & Cooking Hacks

• Chop all your apples the same size or you’ll have some that are crunchy and some that are complete mush
• Wait the full time before flipping or you’ll be scraping cake off the pan with a spoon asking yourself why you do this
• Poke toothpick in different spots because hitting an apple chunk makes you think it’s raw when it’s not
• Use a pastry brush to really jam that spray into every crevice when greasing
• Sift flour if it’s been in your pantry since your kids were babies
• Put glaze on when cake’s warm not screaming hot or it just vanishes

Flavor Variations / Suggestions

More spice: Throw in half a teaspoon nutmeg and allspice if you’re into that whole thing

Nuts: Cup of chopped walnuts or pecans but toast them first or don’t bother

Maple: Use maple syrup instead of half the brown sugar in glaze

Lemon: Tablespoon of lemon zest makes it taste brighter or whatever

Easy glaze: Mix powdered sugar with milk and vanilla if making caramel sounds exhausting

Cranberries: Half cup dried cranberries if you want more tartness

Make-Ahead Options

Actually tastes better the next day when everything’s had time to hang out together. I usually bake it at night.

Bake 2 days early, wrap it up tight no glaze, just leave it out. Make fresh glaze when you need it.

Freezes great for 3 months. Wrap really tight in plastic then foil, skip glaze till later. Thaw in fridge overnight.

Make glaze 3 days early, fridge it. Warm it back up on the stove when you want it.

For breakfast stuff I bake the night before and glaze it fresh in the morning.

Recipe Notes & Baker’s Tips

• Fits a normal 9-inch Bundt pan that holds 10 cups. Bigger pan makes shorter cake, smaller pan’s gonna overflow
• Yeah batter’s supposed to be that thick stop worrying about it
• My oven runs hot so mine’s done at 60. Start checking early and figure yours out
• Serrated knife gives cleaner slices, wipe it between cuts if you care about that
• Live somewhere humid the glaze stays stickier oh well

Serving Suggestions

Just eat it plain honestly. But also:

• With coffee when you need to escape your life for five minutes
• Nuke it for 15 seconds and put ice cream on top
• Whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkle
• Breakfast because I make the rules in my house
• Powdered sugar on top if you need it to look fancy for something
• Bring it to potlucks and watch everyone ask for the recipe

Make this and maybe your cake won’t stick to the pan! Makes you look like you actually know how to bake even when you’re faking it.

How to Store Your Apple Bundt Cake

Room temperature: Under a cake dome or plastic wrap loosely on counter, good for 3 days. Glaze helps keep it from getting dry.

Refrigerator: Stick it in something airtight in fridge, 5 days easy. Let it warm up a bit before eating or it’s all dense and weird.

Freezer: Wrap super tight in plastic then foil skip the glaze. Keeps 3 months. Thaw overnight in fridge.

Reheating: Microwave 10-15 seconds or shove it in 300°F oven for 10 minutes.

Allergy Information

Contains:

• Eggs
• Dairy (butter and cream)
• Gluten (flour duh)

Substitution suggestions:

Gluten-free: Use 1:1 flour but texture’s gonna be different deal with it

Dairy-free: Coconut cream and fake butter works but you’ll taste coconut

Egg-free: 3 flax eggs (3 tablespoons ground flax mixed with 9 tablespoons water wait 5 minutes). Gonna be dense.

Nut-free: Already nut-free unless you add them

Questions I Get Asked A Lot

My cake stuck to the pan! How do I prevent this?

Literally the worst thing ever. Spray way more than feels normal. I use Baker’s Joy but you can go nuts with butter and flour. Wait the whole 15-20 minutes before flipping don’t rush it.

Can I make this without a Bundt pan?

Yeah two 9-inch rounds work bake 35-45 minutes or 9×13 pan bake 45-50 minutes. Won’t look as cool but tastes the same. Time’s different though so pay attention.

The glaze seems too thin—what should I do?

Just wait longer it gets thicker trust me. Still thin after 10 minutes put it back on low heat for another minute. Or whisk powdered sugar in there.

How do I know when the cake is actually done?

Stick toothpick in thick part want moist crumbs not wet batter but not totally dry either. Top should bounce back when you poke it.

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