A deliciously easy Cinnamon Apple Cake made from scratch. This soft and tender Apple Cake is packed with fresh apples and features a crunchy cinnamon topping and a drizzle of sweet frosting.

Apple-licious 🍎
Can we take a moment to talk about the match made in heaven that is apple and cinnamon? This terrifically tender Cinnamon Apple Cake is my new fave.
It’s soft, it’s sweet and it’s jam-packed with fresh, juicy apples. The final touch is a sprinkling of sugary cinnamon and a sweet milk glaze.

Can I just say that I never thought a Cinnamon Apple Cake could taste so good. I baked quite a few cakes to get this recipe JUST right and when I finally landed on the winning recipe, I was beyond excited.
One bite of this soft and fluffy masterpiece and I was fist-pumping the air. After many failed Apple Cinnamon Cakes, I instantly knew this one was the winner. Of course, I had to have a few more slices just to be oh-so-sure.

When I first attempted this cake, I started by using oil as the main fat. This is because oil tends to add moisture to baked goods, like in my Olive Oil Brownies or my Pistachio Cake. I love using oil in cakes.
The first cake was lovely and soft and the taste was on point. But the edges were a little dry for my liking. So I moved on to see if butter would work better, like in my Easy Peach Cake, while also slightly altering the amount of flour and sugar.

Let’s just say, it didn’t. The first butter version used melted butter and the cake was heavy, dense and not great. To add lightness and get back closer to the original version, I tried creaming the butter and sugar, like I do in my Baked Cinnamon Sugar Donut recipe. It was better, but still nothing rivalled the oil version.
So finally, I returned to oil, but used a little less flour and added yoghurt to ensure the cake was soft, moist and never dry. It was crowned the WINNER.
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What you have here is a melt-in-your-mouth cake that’s studded with fresh apples. It boasts a sugar cinnamon crumble, that once baked, becomes crisp and flavourful.
The cinnamon topping blends perfectly with the juicy, chunks of apple. Then, just because we can, we drizzle the entire cake with a two ingredient sweet sugar glaze. It’s pure perfection.

Tips for making Apple Cake
- This Cinnamon Apple Cake is incredibly easy to make. You only need a bowl and spoon – no need for an electric mixer.
- You can use any kind of apple you like, I use red Royal Gala apples. You’ll need to peel and then chop your apple into roughly 1/2 inch squares – discarding the core.
- Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredient until combined – try not to over mix.
- The crumble is made using sugar and cinnamon. Mix together using melted butter until it clumps like sand. Sprinkle over the top of your cake batter – no need to be perfect here.
- Bake until golden and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- The final touch? Drizzle over the sweet sugar glaze and serve!

Watch how to make it
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Let’s Bake
Cinnamon Apple Cake
A tender Cinnamon Apple Cake drizzled with a milk glaze.
Ingredients
Apple cake
- 210 grams (1 and 1/2 cups) plain flour or all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 150 grams (3/4 cup) caster sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 cup (approximately 1 large) red apple, peeled and roughly chopped
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil or flavourless oil
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) Greek yogurt
Cinnamon topping
- 50 grams (1/4 cup) caster sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted
Sugar glaze
- 30 grams (1/4 cup) icing sugar or powdered sugar, sifted
- 1–2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F) standard / 160 C (320 F) fan-forced. Grease and line an 8-inch round cake pan with baking or parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add chopped apple and stir briefly to combine.
- In a separate bowl, add eggs, vanilla, oil and yoghurt. Whisk briefly just to break up the egg yolks.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and gently mix with a wooden spoon until combined – but be careful not to over mix. Spoon batter into prepared tin.
- To make cinnamon topping, combine sugar, cinnamon and butter. Mix together until lumpy and wet. Sprinkle over cake batter.
- Bake cake for approximately 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Transfer cake to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To make the glaze, mix together sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk. Stir until smooth. If the glaze is too thick, add an extra tablespoon of milk. Drizzle glaze all over the cake.
Nutrition Information
Serving Size: Calories: 310 Sugar: 25 g Sodium: 143.8 mg Fat: 14.1 g Carbohydrates: 42.7 g Protein: 4.8 g Cholesterol: 42.2 mg







Verity says
Great recipe. Works with gluten free flour too. A bonus. Used cooking apples from the garden.
Jessica Holmes says
That’s wonderful to hear!
Esther CF says
easy to make and delicious
Jessica Holmes says
So glad you enjoyed it Esther!
S Bailey says
My cake was ok at the edges but uncooked in the middle. A disaster. Also I can cope with grams but not ml’s. I had the fan oven at 160 deg C and cooked for35 minutes, checking progress at 30 minutes. Should I put the heat up to 180 deg C ?cook for longer
Jessica Holmes says
Hi, I’m sorry to hear that! Yes you might have to experiment with the temperature of your oven. A little hotter for a little longer should help!
Elise says
8” cake pan was not big enough. It overflowed and made a mess. I measured everything with care.
Jessica Holmes says
I’m sorry to hear that Elise! How high are the sides of your 8-inch pan? Mine cake pans are 2-inches high. I’ve linked to them in the recipe card if you’d like to see them.
Deborah S Korbel says
I changed it to 2 small apples and sweeten w/ 1/2 cup eyrthritol/munk fruit and put an oat, walnut, cinnamon crumble on top. My husband likes a lot of snacks and I try to keep us low sugar. I did put some brown sugar in the crumble. It made for a nice low-calorie snack and would be really good with ice cream!
Jessica Holmes says
That sounds lovely Deborah!
Helen J says
Debbie, hmmm, you make adjustments, then rate the recipe. I’m confused about whether you’re rating the original (though how can you when you’ve changed it??) or your own version. For me personally, I love the recipe as written, and have successfully made it numerous times
Lisa says
Thank you for sharing this recipe. The cake so easy to make and SO DELICIOUS!
Jessica Holmes says
Yay! Love that Lisa!
Samantha says
Came out great! Realized halfway through the recipe that I was out of Greek yogurt so I subbed sour cream 1:1 and it came out beautiful! Thank you so much for this recipe!
Jessica Holmes says
Yay! Love hearing that Samantha!
Donna Mullenax says
This was super easy and so good!
Have you ever made muffins with this recipe?
Jessica Holmes says
Hi Donna, I haven’t personally but some readers have commented saying they have with success! You might also like to try to try my Apple Muffin recipe.
Judith trumpshaw says
Wow, what a delicious cake, thank you for your time and effort perfecting this, it paid off 😊 I had sour cream instead of yogurt, worked really well
Jessica Holmes says
So happy to hear that Judith!
Kevin says
I followed the recipe but modified it with crème fresh as I did not have yougurt, and added walnuts to it. Great recipe, easy to follow. Comes the closest to my mom’s cake.
Jessica Holmes says
That sounds amazing Kevin!
Julie Jones says
Hi I’ve finished baking your Apple & Cinnamon cake for the second time all my family and friends devoured it 😃 thank you for sharing your recipe 😋
Jessica Holmes says
That makes me so happy Julie!
Grainne Toomey says
so easy and so delicious, great recipe , thanks !!! 🙂
Jessica Holmes says
Yay! So welcome!
Danny says
This recipe looks delicious, and I want to try to make it, but the 150 g of sugar sounds like a lot. It doesn’t come out too sweet?
Jessica Holmes says
Hi Danny, I find it’s perfect. You could reduce the sugar slightly, but just remember that sugar adds moisture and flavour too!
Jane says
I have made this delicious cake several times this Autumn using windfall apples from my garden. It’s so simple to make and tastes incredible. Always gets lots of positive comments.
I don’t add the glaze as it’s sweet enough without it. I serve it with cream. Thank you for this beautiful recipe 💛
Jessica Holmes says
Serving it with cream sounds lovely Jane! And I love that you are able to use fresh apples from your garden – what a treat!
Roshni says
Hi — can this be made as a Bundt cake to add more shape (I want it to have some height for a toddler bday and saw that you said layers would be difficult because it’s very tender)? What would you modify to make it a Bundt?
Jessica Holmes says
Hi Roshni, I think you could make this one into a couple of layers, although it will be fragile compared to say a mud cake. I’m not sure about a bundt, purely just because I haven’t tried myself. But in my experience, only dense cakes work for me in bundt pans. If you do try it, let us know how it goes!
Roshni says
I’m so amazed at your responsiveness. Thanks! I scoured through a lot of comments page by page and saw a few people allege success with Bundt. Nobody specifically said they’ve tried layers in the pages I went through. And I don’t know what frosting to use between layers if I did layers so I’m inclined to roll the dice with Bundt. Any suggestions on the crumble – can that be done in a Bundt shape, do I have to skip it, or is there a version where I can do it after it’s baked? I will def let you know how it goes….
Jessica Holmes says
Oh that’s an interesting query Roshni. Maybe you could do still do the crumble and it would just be on the bottom of the cake. Or you could do it straight into the bundt pan, it’ll sink into the cake a bit and not be as crispy, but I still think it would add nice flavour.
Roshni says
Confirming I used a 10 cup Bundt (doubled recipe, made cupcakes with the remainder) and it came out NO problem! I skipped the cinnamon crumble bc my 2 year old doesn’t really have added sugar anyway, and she devoured ther cake as a standalone (without the glaze either)! I added slightly extra apple given so many others had done so but not that much more. Thank you for making a memorable #2!
Jessica Holmes says
That’s so great to hear Roshni. Thank you so much for letting us all know!
Lisa says
I made a double batch for a church gathering, and every morsel was thoroughly enjoyed! Fantastic recipe… Thanks so much for sharing❣️❣️❣️
Jessica Holmes says
That’s so lovely to hear Lisa! You just made my day!