This is Autumn in a cake! A spiced cider layer cake, filling with salted caramel Swiss meringue buttercream and finished with a pie crumb buttercream, it will is the cake to to celebrate the arrival of Autumn.
After making my apple cider donuts, I realised I had quite a bit of cider leftover and needed to do something with it. I thought about the desserts that always come to mind when I think of Autumn, and for it is a caramel apple pie. You might have noticed that this isn't a pie recipe. But I'm trying to get that wonderful caramel apple pie flavour and texture in a cake!
Spiced Cider Cake
The apple cake is made of 3 8" layers, though you could use a 9" pan but you would have to adjust your baking time. It's base is of a white cake but instead of adding milk, I add a reduced apple cider. If you don't have apple cider (as in, American apple cider and definitely not UK hard cider!) then you could use cloudy apple juice and add cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.
I also followed Stella Park's suggestion to add a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar! She also suggests using coconut oil and butter, instead of just butter, which gives the cake a much fluffier texture.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
I've mentioned different frostings in this blog post, but if it isn't something you've come across before, Swiss Meringue Buttercream is a frosting with a ...wait for it.. Swiss meringue base. Surprise! Bet you didn't see that one coming. If you're like 'get to the point, for the love of God', well Swiss meringue is made by heating up sugar and egg whites until they get to a certain temperature. They're then whipped until you get stiff white peaks, and then room temperature butter is added, chunk by chunk. This buttercream is a great one for frosting layer cakes and because it is so white you can easily colour it using different flavourings.
This buttercream recipe is great because we can divide it up when it's done and add two different flavours, meaning we're getting our filling and our frosting from just 1 recipe - yay!
Salted Caramel
If you really wanted to, you could just use a salted caramel spread and add that to the frosting. I promise I won't tell on you to Ina Garten, Claire Saffitz or any of the other powers to be in baking. BUT if you did want to make it, here are a few tips:
- Never leave your saucepan unattended! When you're cooking the sugar, it is going to go from gold to amber pretty quickly. You want to make sure you're there to take it off the heat at the right moment.
- You don't have to add salt to it but I think the combination of salty and sweet is perfect in this!
- When you're adding the butter and cream, be careful as it will hiss and pop.
Pie Crumb
This pie crumb idea is taken from Milk Bar's first book. I loved the idea of taking the flavour of a pie and adding it to a frosting. Again, if you really didn't want to bother you could make the whole cake salted caramel flavoured, but making the pie crumb really doesn't take long and it's something you can do a few days ahead as it can keep in the fridge for a week.
You're taking the ingredients to make a pie dough, mixing them until small clusters form, and then baking those small clusters until they're a golden brown. I kept some to the side to decorate the cake, and then I took the rest in a blender with milk to create a thick paste which I then mixed in with my frosting.
Recipe
Apple Cider Layer Cake
Ingredients
Apple Cider Layer Cake
- 8 egg yolks
- 454 grams apple cider reduced from 1000g
- 3 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 454 grams all purpose flour
- 225 grams light brown sugar
- 200 grams granulated sugar
- 2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- 226 grams unsalted butter
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 113 grams coconut oil, room temperature
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- 8 egg whites
- 446 grams granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 678 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
Pie Crumb
- 240 grams all purpose flour
- 18 grams granulated sugar
- 2 grams kosher salt
- 115 grams unsalted butter, melted
- 20 grams water
Salted Caramel
- 125 grams double cream
- 200 grams granulated sugar
- 85 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ tablespoon kosher salt
Pie Crumb Frosting
- ½ portion pie crumb
- 110 grams milk
- 2 grams kosher salt
Instructions
Apple Cider Cake
- Grease 3 8"inch cake pans. Preheat the oven to 325°F/162°C
- In a large bowl, sift the flour. In a measuring jug, mix the apple cider and cider vinegar together.
- Add butter, coconut oil, sugars, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Combine using the paddle attachment, first on low and then increasing the speed to medium until fluffy, for about 5 minutes.
- While the mixer is running, add the egg whites and then the vanilla extract. Reduce the speed to low and add a third of the flour, then a third of the apple cider. Repeat twice more. Once the mixture is completely smooth, pour into the three cake pans.
- Bake for 40 minutes, until the cake is brown around the edges and a toothpick would come out with just a few crumbs.
Pie Crumb
- Heat oven to 355°F/180°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a mixer with a paddle attachment on low until mixed. Add butter and water and mix on low, it should start forming clusters.
- Spread the clusters on the tray and bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool completely.
Salted Caramel
- Put the sugar in a medium saucepan and stir constantly over a medium heat. The sugar will start forming clumps and then begin to melt. Once it turns a deep amber colour, take off the heat and add all the butter. Be careful as it may sputter! Then add the cream and the salt. Let it cool completely.
- If you make this ahead of time, keep it in the fridge.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Fill a medium saucepan with about an inch of water, bring to a gentle boil.
- In a stand mixer bowl, stir the egg whites, sugar and salt until combined. Place the bowl over the saucepan. Make sure you're constantly whisking the sugar mixture until it reaches a temperature of 160°F.
- Remove the bowl from heat and place it in your stand mixer, with a whisk attachment. Whisk on medium high until you have stiff, glossy peaks, about 8-10 minutes. Touch the bowl, at this point it should have cooled down.
- Reduce speed to low and add the butter, a tablespoon at a time.
Fillings & Frosting
- Take 400g of the buttercream out and put into a large bowl. Add 120g of salted caramel and mix well with a spatula.
- Combine half of the pie crumb, milk and salt in a blender. Puree until smooth. Add this to the rest of the buttercream and fold using a flexible spatula.
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