Cinnamon Apple Coffee Cake

12/10/20

 

Yield: 10 - 12 servings | Prep: 20mins. | Ready in: 2 1/2 hours | PDF version

What you need:

  • ¾ cups sugar, divided
  • ½ cup (1 stick) margarine, softened
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 8 ounces fat free cream cheese (block-style), softened
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 ½ cups flour
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 3 cups chopped apples
  • Cooking spray

What you do:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8-inch springform pan with cooking spray.
  2. Beat 1 ½ cups sugar, margarine, vanilla and cream cheese at medium speed of mixer until well-blended (about 4 minutes). Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
  3. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture, beating at low speed until blended.
  4. Combine ¼ cup sugar and cinnamon in small bowl. Combine 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon sugar mixture and chopped apples. Stir apple mixture into batter.
  5. Pour batter into the springform pan and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture.
  6. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until cake pulls away from the sides of the pan.
  7. Cool cake completely on wire rack. Cut using a serrated knife.

Baking tip:

You can also make this cake in a 9-inch square cake pan or a 9-inch springform pan; just reduce the cooking time by 5 minutes.

Topping trim down:

Many coffee cake recipes include a heavy butter-laden streusel topping. Easily lighten up the topping with one of these suggestions:

  • A sprinkling of crunchy turbinado sugar or cinnamon-sugar mixture or powdered sugar
  • Citrus glaze consisting of only powdered sugar and lemon/lime/orange juice and rind
  • Fresh berries mixed in fat free vanilla yogurt
  • Reworked streusel topping consisting of oatmeal, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, and orange juice concentrate.

Adapted from Cooking Light.