Chai Spiced Apple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Sep 15, 2014, Updated Mar 16, 2024
Chai Apple Cake is one of my favourite fall cakes – it’s moist, fragrant and studded with apples. The cream cheese frosting on top is perfect!
Chai Apple Cake
As soon as September arrives, I’m eager to segue into autumn baking – is there anything better in life than the smell of apples and warm spices wafting from the oven?
This Chai Apple Cake a casual dessert, one that gets eagerly gobbled up for breakfast with coffee the next day. But this time I was entertaining and wanted to make it special.
The Cream Cheese Frosting
Thick swirls of cream cheese frosting crowning the chai apple cake and dripping seductively down its sides did the trick nicely don’t you think?
For this frosting, cream cheese is beaten with butter until light and fluffy, then confectioners’ sugar, pure vanilla and nutmeg are beaten in.
Nutmeg might not be the first spice you’d think to add to frosting, but it’s heady aroma complements the richness and sweetness beautifully, and it lends a gripping intrigue that will have you licking the bowl.
As a final flourish, I dusted cinnamon over the top using a small fine-mesh sieve.
Other Favorite Apple Treats
- Apple Pie Cake
- Apple Muffins
- Caramel Ripple Apple Cake
- Caramel Apple Cheesecake
- Caramel Apple Cookies
- Homemade Caramel Apples
Other Delicious Chai Recipes to Try
Chai Spiced Apple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- 2 ½ cups peeled finely diced apples
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz softened cream cheese
- ½ cup softened butter
- 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325ºF. Grease and flour a nonstick bundt pan.
- Beat butter and sugar in a standing mixer until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating about 30 seconds after each. Beat in vanilla.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour with baking soda, salt, and spices. Add one third of flour mixture to butter mixture and beat on low speed till just combined. Add half of the buttermilk and beat again. Repeat with another third of he flour mixture, then the rest of the buttermilk, and finish by beating in the last of the flour.
- Gently fold in the apples and scrape batter into prepared bundt pan. Bake about 50 minutes, until cake feels springy when touched and toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.
- Let cake cool for 10 mins in hot pan – this makes the bottom moist and it helps it to release easily from the pan. Wearing oven mitts, flip the cake onto a cooling rack. Knock on the bottom of the pan a few times until you feel the cake release.
To make frosting:
- Beat together cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy, then beat in remaining ingredients. Finish cooling cake completely on the rack before frosting.
How much butter should be used in the frosting? Thank you
How many apples would be 2.5 cups apples finely diced and peeled?