There's nothing that screams "fall" more than crisp apple cider! And when it's infused into a moist and flavorful apple cider and date coffee cake, you've got yourself a perfectly warm and comforting treat made with simple, seasonal ingredients in just a few easy steps.
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📋 About the Recipe
- This apple cider and date coffee cake is an easy cake recipe that's full of fresh apple flavor from diced apples and crisp apple cider. Both the apples and the cider give it extra moisture as well.
- This cake is perfectly moist, yet flakey, with a sweet brown sugar streusel and date filling and a crunchy crumb topping.
- The dates add extra sweetness from natural sugars, as well as a subtle fruity honey-like flavor. If you've never tried dates before, then you should definitely give them a try! You can hardly tell they're in the cake, but they give it great texture and flavor.
- This coffee cake is rich and decadent, perfectly paired with a cup of coffee or tea.
- Serve apple cider and date coffee cake as a dessert or breakfast cake. The warm and comforting apple cinnamon flavor is perfect for the fall season!
🛒 Ingredients
A few notes about the ingredients:
- Apple cider - apple cider is a concentrated, unfiltered juice from mashed apples. It is non-alcoholic and provides a rich apple flavor to the coffee cake.
- Dates - dates are sweet, dried fruit. They provide a slight chewiness and some additional sweetness to the cake.
- Unsalted butter - butter adds richness and helps to bring the rest of the ingredients together. It is also one of the main components in the cinnamon streusel filling and topping.
- Sugar, Brown sugar - both sugars add sweetness to the coffee cake, while brown sugar adds a touch more sweetness, as well as a caramel-like flavor.
- All purpose flour - all purpose flour keeps the cake fluffy and cake-like. It is also a component of the streusel, giving it a nice crunch.
- Baking powder, Salt - both work together to help the cake rise.
- Eggs - eggs bind the cake ingredients together.
- Vanilla - vanilla adds flavor to the cake. Make sure to use a good quality vanilla extract and NOT an imitation vanilla flavoring.
- Sour cream - sour cream adds moisture and richness to the cake. It keeps the cake tender and helps blend the rest of the ingredients together.
- Apples - apples also provide moisture, as well as fresh apple flavor. I like to use granny smith apples since they're more tart and can balance out the other sweeter ingredients.
- Cinnamon - cinnamon adds a delicious, warm and comforting flavor. It is a key component to most coffee cakes.
📓 Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two 8x8 or 9x9 inch baking pans with parchment paper or spray them with nonstick spray.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment to combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add eggs, vanilla, and sour cream and beat until combined.
5. Add half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Followed by half of the apple cider. Beat until just combined. Repeat with the other half of flour, then the other half of cider. Do not over-mix.
6. In a small bowl, add the dates and cover them with warm water to rehydrate them. Set the bowl aside and allow the dates to soak for about 10 minutes.
7. Peel and dice the apples. Then, use a rubber spatula to fold them into the batter. Set the bowl with the batter aside.
8. Prepare the streusel by cubing room temperature butter into a large mixing bowl.
9. Add flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon to the butter and use your hands to mix them into the butter until they are well incorporated and form large crumbs.
10. Drain the water from the dates and remove their pits. Chop the dates into small pieces.
11. For each pan: pour 2 cups of batter, then 1 cup of streusel, and a ½ cup of dates. Top with 2 cups of batter plus any remaining batter left in the bowl, followed by 1 cup of streusel plus any extra.
12. Place the baking pans in the oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean with a few crumbs.
⁉️ Substitutions and Alterations
Instead of dates: you can use other dried fruits, such as raisins or golden raisins, apricots, cranberries, cherries, or prunes.
Instead of cinnamon: you can use pumpkin pie spice for a more festive flavor.
Instead of sour cream: you can use plain, full-fat greek yogurt.
❄️ How to Store
To store: Allow the cake to cool completely before wrapping tightly with plastic wrap and storing on your counter. However, due to the cake's moisture, you may want to store the cake in your refrigerator after a day or two so it will keep fresh longer.
The cake will last an additional 3 days once stored in the refrigerator. Allow the cake to come to room temperature before slicing and serving.
To freeze: You can either freeze this apple cider and date coffee cake whole or slice it into individual serving-sized pieces. Either way, allow the cake to cool completely before wrapping it tightly with plastic wrap. Store in the freezer up to 4 months.
To defrost: remove the cake from the freezer one day before serving and place it immediately into the refrigerator. Allow cake about 8 hours in the fridge to defrost completely.
🔍 FAQs
Coffee cake gets its name because it is typically served with a cup of coffee, not because it is made with coffee in it. It can be both a breakfast cake or a dessert cake.
Coffee cake is a moist, sweet cake, often flavored with cinnamon, butter, and sugar with streusel or a crumbly topping made from butter, flour, and sugar. There are many flavor variations that include fresh fruits and berries.
Dates are a sweet, dried fruit. Their sweetness is very similar to honey in flavor.
They can often be found in the produce aisle of your grocery store near the nuts, salad toppings, or dried fruits.
Fresh apple cider is a seasonal drink. However, some stores carry the pasteurized version in their refrigerated section near the produce aisle year-round.
Flavor-wise, I like the orchard-fresh apple cider best, which is sold September through November, either at your local grocery store or at cider mills (depending on your location).
However, both kinds of apple cider will work for the purpose of this recipe.
💭 One More Tip
Don't over-mix the ingredients when making the batter for the cake. Instead, simply beat the ingredients together until they're just combined.
Over-mixing will cause the flour to develop more gluten. This is generally good when making doughs for breads, pizza, or other denser baked goods, but this is not ideal for cakes or lighter treats.
Gluten makes the batter more dense and gummy, which is not a good texture for cakes. Instead, mix the ingredients for this apple cider coffee cake just until the last dry specks of flour are incorporated into the rest of the wet ingredients then turn off your mixer.
To add in the diced apples, use a rubber spatula to fold them in, so you don't disturb the flour too much.
🍴 Related Recipes
Share your cooking with me! If you make this recipe, I'd love to know! Tag @yourhomemadehealthy on Instagram or leave a comment with a rating and some feedback at the bottom of this page!
📖 Recipe
Apple Cider and Date Coffee Cake
Equipment
- two 8x8 or 9x9 inch cake pans
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 3 ⅔ cups all purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) room temperature
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ⅔ cup light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¾ cup sour cream or plain greek yogurt
- 1 cup apple cider
- 2 medium granny smith apples
For the Streusel
- 10 medjool dates
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) room temperature
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 4 tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two 8x8 or 9x9 inch baking pans with parchment paper or spray them with nonstick spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment to combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Add eggs, vanilla, and sour cream and beat until combined.
- Add half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Followed by half of the apple cider. Beat until just combined. Repeat with the other half of flour, then the other half of cider. Do not over-mix.
- Add the dates to a small bowl and cover them with warm water to rehydrate them. Set the bowl aside and allow the dates to soak for about 10 minutes.
- Peel and dice the apples. Then, use a rubber spatula to fold them into the cake batter. Set the bowl with the batter aside.
- Prepare the streusel by cubing room temperature butter into a large mixing bowl.
- Add flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon to the butter and use your hands to mix them into the butter until they are well incorporated and form large crumbs.
- Drain the water from the dates and remove their pits. Chop the dates into small pieces.
- For each pan: pour 2 cups of batter, then 1 cup of streusel, and a ½ cup of dates. Top with 2 cups of batter plus any remaining batter left in the bowl, followed by 1 cup of streusel plus any extra.
- Place the baking pans in the oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean with a few crumbs.
Storage
- To store: Allow the cake to cool completely before wrapping tightly with plastic wrap and storing on your counter. However, due to the cake's moisture, you may want to store the cake in your refrigerator after a day or two so it will keep fresh longer.The cake will last an additional 3 days once stored in the refrigerator. Allow the cake to come to room temperature before slicing and serving.To freeze: You can either freeze this apple cider and date coffee cake whole or slice it into individual serving-sized pieces. Either way, allow the cake to cool completely before wrapping it tightly with plastic wrap. Store in the freezer up to 4 months.To defrost: remove the cake from the freezer one day before serving and place it immediately into the refrigerator. Allow cake about 8 hours in the fridge to defrost completely.
Notes
- Dates are a sweet, dried fruit. Their sweetness is very similar to honey in flavor. They can often be found in the produce aisle of your grocery store near the nuts, salad toppings, or dried fruits.
- Fresh non-alcoholic apple cider is a seasonal drink. However, some stores carry the pasteurized version in their refrigerated section near the produce aisle year-round. Flavor-wise, I like the orchard-fresh apple cider best, which is sold September through November, either at your local grocery store or at cider mills (depending on your location). However, both kinds of apple cider will work for the purpose of this recipe.
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Steph
Such a fun fall twist to coffee cake!! So yummy and worth every minute for how good house smells when baking!!!
Alana Lieberman
Definitely love that fresh baked cake smell! Thank you!
Lexi
So moist and delicious, LOVE the date filling!
Alana Lieberman
The date filling is my favorite! So happy you liked it!
Emily
This coffee cake is so moist and flavorful! My whole family loved it.
Alana Lieberman
That's great to hear! Thanks for giving it a try 🙂