I love changing up traditional recipes to use more fresh produce. And I love going apple picking at the local orchard. Taking a spin on the normal apple pie, I love to make fruit cakes too. Not the yucky ones you think of at Christmas time. These are fluffy and delicious. Try changing up dessert with my Apple Cake with Butter Coffee Icing.

Why Add Fruit To Cake?

Typically when you think of fruit as a dessert you think pie. Well, at least I do. It seems like a no brainer when apple season starts to make tons of apple pie. Which I also do. (I have too. My Dad loves my mom’s Dutch Apple Pie, so I always make sure he gets one.)

But fruit in cake is not as normal. Mostly we think of carrot cake when this comes up in conversation. While I love carrot cake, I love the idea of more non-standard cakes.

Adding fruit to dessert is also good for the kiddos. They are getting just a smidge of the nutritional value from the fruit. And who knows, maybe they’ll learn to love fruit when they’re older if we are sneaky about it.

Local Apple Sourcing

Unfortunately, I do not have apple trees. I would love to have them, and we have the remnants of one in the yard as my husband’s uncle had one years ago. Apparently, they were not well cared for, and all have died over the years.

So instead, I wait for the local apple orchard to open. They are lovely, as you can buy already picked apples if you are in a rush, or you can make a day of it and go out and pick your own. Lawrence Orchard is one of my favorite places to visit on a lazy Saturday in the summer.

Apple Cake

The key to a great apple cake is the variety of apples you choose to bake with. My favorite local varies to bake with are Golden Delicious and Gold Rush. These are sweeter varies, and denser, so they stand up to baking wonderfully. Other great choices are Jonathan and Empire.

Grating the apples as you would potatoes for hash browns is pretty simple. I like to use a box grater to do mine, as it gives me better control over watching for bad spots as I grate. Make sure that before grating you peel and core your apples. No one wants a seed in their piece of cake!

Butter Coffee Icing

This is an old fashioned recipe that I learned long ago from a wonderful old family friend. She said she used to make a lot of things to use up leftover percolated coffee. I don’t know if you have ever had percolated coffee instead of regular brewed coffee, but to me it was always more bitter that way. My Grandma and Grandpa lived by theirs.

Using up some leftover coffee is a great use of it. Or make some just because you want to make some icing. I’m all about my coffee addiction, so anything involving coffee makes me happy.

And what could be better for dessert than apple cake with butter coffee icing and a piping hot cup of joe? Seems like absolute heaven to me.

Apple Cake with Butter Coffee Icing

Looking for more dessert recipes? Find them all here.