Apple Cake Recipe (A French Classic)
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This French apple cake recipe is wonderfully moist, just sweet enough, and packed with apples in every bite.
In my twenties, I worked as an au pair in Paris for a family with three little boys. My host mother, Valérie, loved to cook, and her apple cake—with tart apples baked into a tender, buttery rum cake—quickly became one of my favorite desserts. This recipe is based on hers, and it’s every bit as easy to make as it is delicious.
Pair it with a cup of coffee in the afternoon or serve it for dessert topped with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It’s a great cake to make in the fall, when apples are at their peak, and throughout the holiday season.
“Last year I won first place in a state fair with this recipe…This year I won division champion in our county fair. It’s a total winner of a recipe!”
What You’ll Need to Make French Apple Cake
- All-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt: Measure the flour by spooning it into the measuring cup and leveling it off rather than scooping directly from the bag.
- Unsalted butter: Make sure it’s at room temperature so it creams properly with the sugar.
- Granulated sugar: Sweetens the cake, with a little extra sprinkled over the top before baking to create a delicate, crackly crust.
- Eggs: Bring them to room temperature so they blend smoothly into the butter mixture.
- Vanilla extract and dark rum: The rum gives the cake its distinctive flavor and pairs beautifully with the apples without overpowering them.
- Baking apples: Choose firm apples that hold their shape in the oven, such as Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, Fuji, Braeburn, or Pink Lady. I like slightly tart varieties best to balance the sweetness of the cake.
- Confectioners’ sugar: Optional, for dusting over the cake before serving.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
How To Make Apple Cake
Combine the dry ingredients: Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Make the batter: Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and rum, then add the dry ingredients and mix just until combined.
Add the apples: Peel, core, and cut the apples into chunks, then fold them into the batter. The batter will be quite thick and there will be a lot of apples—that’s exactly how it should look.
Bake the cake: Scrape the batter into the prepared springform pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle with sugar, then bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan, then remove and dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.
Video Tutorial
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French Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled off
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling over cake
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons dark rum
- 2 medium baking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ½-inch cubes (about 2½ cups; see note)
- Confectioners' sugar (optional), for decorating cake
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and set an oven rack in the middle position. Grease a 9-inch (23-cm) springform or regular cake pan with butter or nonstick cooking spray. If using a regular cake pan, line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and grease again.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
- Using a handheld mixer with beaters or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and rum. Don't worry if the batter looks curdled at this point; that's okay. Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until just combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the chopped apples.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and even the top. Sprinkle evenly with 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool on a rack in the pan. Once cool, run a blunt knife around the edges of the cake. If using a springform pan, remove the sides. If using a regular cake pan, carefully invert the cake onto the rack, remove the parchment paper, then gently flip the cake over and place right-side-up on a platter. Using a fine sieve, dust with confectioners' sugar (if using). Cake can be served warm or room temperature, plain or with lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Notes
- When baking this cake, it's important to use apples suitable for baking. Baking apples hold their shape when cooked, so the chunks of fruit won't turn into applesauce in the oven. Tart-sweet varietals such as Granny Smith, Honey Crisp, Pink Lady, Braeburn, and Jonagold are all great options. Feel free to combine different varieties for a more nuanced flavor.
- Make-Ahead/Freezing Instructions: The cake is best enjoyed fresh but keeps well for up to 2 days. Store at room temperature in a cake dome or covered with foil. It can also be frozen for up to 3 months. After it is completely cooled, wrap it tightly with aluminum foil or freezer wrap. Thaw overnight on the countertop before serving.
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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This cake is so easy to make and tastes really great! I guess because it’s too cold inside the kitchen, I had trouble creaming the sugar and butter. The texture of my batter didn’t look as fluffy as yours in the photos. I was worried it might affect the texture of the cake but it didn’t. I sprinkled it with panela on top instead of granulated sugar and I’m glad I did because it had a very beautiful color when it came out of the oven.
Jenn!
Thank you so much for this amazing recipe!
I’ve made it THREE TIMES in TWO WEEKS and every single time it came out perfect! This will be one of my most used recipes for the rest of my life, 100% guaranteed! This weekend, I’ll be making it for the other half of my family and I have no doubts that they will fall in love with this cake as well!
I would suggest not refrigerating it since it wont last more than a couple of days either way. :)) It stays moist and delicious this way. And definitely don’t skip on the rum, like the other reviewers have commented already. This recipe is really perfect as is; I wouldn’t change a thing! The last time I made it, I used one Honeycrisp apple and three Macintosh (ran out of Honeycrisp) and replaced the butter with coconut oil and still perfect! So in case you run out of butter or the recommended kind of apples (like me), I found that these substitutions definitely preserve the integrity of the recipe.
Thank you so much again, Jenn! Easy, delicious, amazingly tasty and relatively healthy desert recipe that will forever stay in my family now! ;))
Absolutely amazing! Beautifully balanced flavors – the rum was an extra bonus. I made it for guests, but we had to cancel our dinner. This left the entire cake for two of us – we consumed it over a few days and it stayed perfectly moist. In our rotation permanently – thank you for this recipe!
I give this 5 stars all the way around! Five stars for an easy recipe, five stars for using only a few staple ingredients, five stars for taste. It is such a nice mild cake, not too rich, and is good for breakfast, along with tea or coffee, or as a dessert.
So this recipe has become our family’s go-to dessert; so much so that it has sparked an apple cake cook-off in the extended family. Here are my slight modifications: 1) double the recipe. It will fit perfectly in a springform pan and you’ll need the extra cake as the recipe is so good. 2) Cutting the rum to three tablespoons (when doubling) is perfect – not too strong. I’ve experimented with light and dark rum and both work well. 3) sprinkle brown sugar in lieu of white for a slightly different, perhaps sweeter top crust. Note we generally omit the powdered sugar as a result. 4) best apples? Gala, honey crisp and Kenzo seem to work best from our point of view. Really, the recipe is delightful and needs no modifications, but if you do double it please be aware cooking time increases to nearly an hour.
I recently made this cake as part of a bereavement meal for a friend. The cake was very moist and delicious with delicate flavors of apple and a hit of rum. I made it in the 9″ springform pan and my only suggestion would be that if you’re going to remove it entirely from the pan, that a piece of parchment be cut and put in the bottom.
This is my favourite recipe! Thank you, Jen! It is so easy, at the same time so delicious. I substitute rum with apple juice (I use 7-8 table spoons of freshly squeezed apple juice). The cake is usually finished the same evening 🙂
As this cake does not seem too high, do you think you could make 2 and sandwich together with cream cheese frosting? Do you think flavors would work to do that?
Hi Kate, This cake is pretty heavy, so not sure that it lends itself well to a layer cake. That said, if you want to try it, I’d suggest using two 9-inch round cake pans.
I was looking for an apple based dessert recipe after our neighbour gave us a bag-full of apples from his tree. I didn’t want pie, as I’m really hate apple pie. I tried this recipe and added about a half cup of chopped walnuts. It has become a household favourite! I have since made this cake for my neighbours on each side of us, for our Canadian Thanksgiving, and for a recent yearly retreat with girlfriends. Each time, I get asked for the recipe, and promptly forward your blog info! Thanks for a great recipe!
Hi
My Nana called this Nobby Apple cake minus the liquor, always disappeared. Will try your version. Thanks