Apple Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Filling & Praline Frosting
This apple Bundt cake is loaded with spice, pecans, has a huge cream cheese swirl in the middle, and is topped with a praline frosting.
This, my friends, is one heck of a cake.
Once I knew my grandparents were coming over for lunch and I had decided on chicken pot pie, I started to give some thought to dessert. I wanted to make something seasonal, something that would be delicious, but nothing that was terribly complicated or time-consuming. I started thinking about some of the different recipes I had seen for apple Bundt cakes and finally settled on this one. Truly, what is not to love? This apple cake is incredibly moist and packed with apple flavor thanks to applesauce in the batter, as well as the chopped apples folded in… we’ve got pecans in there… a cream cheese filling (have I mentioned I never turn down anything with cream cheese?)… and finally, a praline frosting. It’s everything that a fall cake should be… and then some.
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This apple Bundt cake was met with rave reviews, and my Chief Culinary Consultant declared it one of the top three things I’ve made all year. I baked a lot of stuff, so that’s a pretty serious nod of approval. We ate the cake with a small scoop of apple pie ice cream, which was a fantastic complement to the cake. It would also be great with plain vanilla ice cream, or nothing at all. This apple cake is so fantastic that it can absolutely stand on its own. No wingman needed. We all agreed that this would make a fantastic dessert on Thanksgiving – a great change of pace from the typical pumpkin and pecan pies. You could even switch up the frosting and instead of praline, do a maple glaze. However you dress it up, you must make this. Your taste buds deserve it!
P.S. I was rushing to put this cake together before we met friends for dinner and totally forgot to swirl the cream cheese. You should definitely swirl. Swirls rock.
Two years ago: Russian Pound Cake
Four years ago: Homemade Pierogi
Apple Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Filling & Praline Frosting
Ingredients
For the Cream Cheese Filling:
- 8 ounces (226.8 g) cream cheese, at room temperature
- ¼ cup (56.75 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Cake:
- 3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (220 g) light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 eggs
- ¾ cup (163.5 ml) canola or vegetable oil
- ¾ cup (183 ml) unsweetened applesauce
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 Gala apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped (about 3 cups)
- 1 cup (99 g) pecans, toasted and finely chopped
For the Praline Frosting:
- ½ cup (110 g) light brown sugar
- ¼ cup (56.75 g) unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons whole milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (120 g) powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. (reduce temperature to 325 degrees F if your pan is dark/non-stick). Grease and flour a standard Bundt pan (12-cup capacity); set aside.
- Make the Cream Cheese Filling: Beat the cream cheese, butter and sugar on medium speed until well combined and smooth. Add the egg, flour and vanilla and continue beating just until incorporated. Set aside.
- Make the Apple-Pecan Cake: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, both sugars, the cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, baking soda and salt. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, applesauce and vanilla extract. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and gently mix to combine using a whisk or rubber spatula.
- Gently fold in the pecans and chopped apples until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
- Spoon about 2/3 of the cake batter into the prepared pan. Top evenly with the cream cheese filling, leaving a 1-inch border around the edge of the pan. Use a thin paring knife to gently swirl the cream cheese filling with the cake batter just a few times – less is more. Spoon the remainder of the cake batter on top of the cream cheese filling and gently spread to the edges of the pan, covering the filling.
- Bake for 60 to 75 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool for 15 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack and allow to cool completely (at least 2 hours).
- Make the Praline Frosting: Combine the brown sugar, butter and milk in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Boil for 1 minute, continuing to whisk constantly, then remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Gradually whisk in the powdered sugar until it is completely incorporated and the frosting is smooth.
- Slowly pour the frosting over the cooled cake and garnish with extra pecans. Give the frosting 5 minutes to set, then serve. Store leftovers in an airtight container or wrapped tightly with plastic wrap at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
this is has to be the most fantastic bundt cake i have ever seen! apple, praline, cream cheese… seriously, you can do no wrong. pure love.
xo
http://allykayler.blogspot.ca/
This looks amazing and it will be on my Thanksgiving table this year.
This cake looks amazing!! Pinning now!
Even the title of this post is way too much for me. Too much fall goodness!!! Love it!
I cannot wait to try this! It makes me want to purposely organize a family dinner just so I can make it and not end up putting on 15 pounds after eating most of it myself…
No doubt this cake stands well all by itself. It looks wonderful and the flavour of the apples, pecans and cream cheese must be fantastic. I love the colour of that praline frosting.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Sometimes the simple food is the best!
I was so pleased to see your pierogi recipe and wanted to share my own. I’m more than a bit Polish and my mother’s recipe for pierogi is infinitely easier than yours and probably just as luscious as well. My sister-in-law and I make 40-50 dozen on the weekend after Thanksgiving each year. I make the dough and roll and she fills the pierogi. The family’s recipe is 10 cups of flour, 1 pint of sour cream and 1 pint of boiling water. That’s it. The dough is elastic and easy to work with and can be rolled very thin…so much so, when cooked, you can distinguish between those filled with potato from those with cabbage ones or meat.
this looks amazing! i don’t like nuts in cakes. if i were to leave them out, would i need to make any other modifications? i can’t wait to try this!
Hi Jen, Not at all, you can just omit them without making any other modifications.
I’m so glad you guys loved this as much as we did! Yours is gorgeous! I kind of want to make it again now :)
This looks amazing! I love every single flavor going on in this cake, especially the cream cheese! You have some lucky grandparents – this, plus chicken pot pie sounds like an awesome meal!
That frosting looks amazing. I could eat that and skip the cake, but with the cake, I bet it is out of this world!
This is a masterpiece. Truly amazing and definitely delicious!
This is a beautiful bundt cake! I love the praline frosting!
I love apple bundt cakes! Cream cheese swirl sounds like a great idea, but this frosting is something I will be dreaming of. Gorgeous!
One heck of a cake INDEED. I can’t decide what I like more: The cheesecake filling or the praline frosting. Which is why I’ll have to make it and find out. :)
That’s a LOT of sugar to 3c flour. I hope I can cut some out and it’ll still turn out…
This looks amazing. If I made it though I’d eat half of it in one sitting and be sick for the next three days. It wouldn’t turn out well.
Yum! I do need to bring a dessert to my mother-in-law’s place for Thanksgiving – this could be it! Looks fantastic – so many fall tastes in there!
WHO IS YOUR CHEF CULINARY CONSULTANT? IT SEEMS LIKE HE IS WITH YOU EVERYWHERE.
This looks soooo good! I’m thinking this definitely needs to be made!
I made this last week (out of the magazine) I was so excited to try it and I had some homemade applesauce to use up and a brand new bundt pan, so I gave it a go. It looked lovely but I think the taste and texture were only “Meh” so I don’t know where I went wrong. The texture I expected from the chopped apples and the crunch of the pecans was completely missing. I grinded the pecans in a nut grinder. Also there was zero tang or taste from the cream cheese. I noticed a slight change in texture at the center, but nada on the taste. I may make this once more (with “feeling” as my old choir director used to say) and not use the grinder plus buy the “name brand” cream cheese. I used store brand, but it was “organic”. Any ideas, or do I just have my very own palette and not everyone LOVES everything the same?
Hi Jeanne, I would definitely just chop the pecans instead of grinding them. You definitely get that crunch. By grinding them you lose the crunch factor, plus they could also compromise the texture of the cake. I thought the cream cheese filling had a lot of flavor and it was one of the favorite parts of the cake by everyone who had it, but as you said, not everyone tastes everything the same way! As for cream cheese, I always use Philadelphia full-fat cream cheese when baking. I find other stuff can be too watery and lacking in flavor. Hope that helps!
I will definitely try again…with your recommendations and I’ll let you know.
This cake is beautiful! Love this idea!
This cake looks fabulous!
I have never seen an apple cake with filling! This is a game changer!
WOW. I have to make this ….
I have to EAT this!
This cake looks awesome I have to try it!….I have tried some of your recipes and it good than you for the great treats!!!!!!
This cake looks awesome I have to try it!….I have tried of your recipes and it good than you for the great treats!!!!!!
The cake looks stunning! I made an apple spice cake a couple weeks ago and if ONLY I had stuffed it full of cream cheese filling. Oh what a great idea, Michelle! It looks sooo good!
It looks awesome…even without the swirled cream cheese! Love the praline frosting. Yumm-ayyyy! :)
I made this cake, yesterday and it is truly wonderful! Everyone wanted more and the recipe, too. I made the the Irish Bomb cupcakes a while back and they were the bomb. I have a friend who makes a cake from the Irish Bomb cupcakes and it is fabulous. One thing…the only thing I didn’t add were the pecans to the apple cake and that’s just because I don’t care for nuts.