Easy Apple Crumble Cake (German Krummeltorte)
If you’re very much not an experienced baker, this is the recipe for you – the recipe for this easy apple crumble cake truly couldn’t be more forgiving. If you didn’t mix the ingredients particularly well? Ehh, it doesn’t matter. Cooked the apples a little too long, and they’ve gone a bit mushy? Never mind! It will still be delicious. Truly, I am not a master baker my any means, but I’ve made this easy cake loads of times now, and it always comes out perfectly.
You might also like: Caramel Pear Crumble Cake; Hot Cross Bun Bread and Butter Pudding; No Churn Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream.
This apple cake has three main layers:
- a dense, cakey base
- a layer of soft and sweet spiced apples
- an extra sugary, crumbly layer on top
And the best part? The same mixture of ingredients is used for both the top and bottom layers! I know, it’s like magic.
👵🏻 Old Family Recipe
This easy apple crumble cake is actually a recipe from my late Granny’s old handwritten recipe book (which you may have seen before if you’ve read my vegetable cobbler recipe!). It’s such a special recipe book, stuffed with random recipes that my Granny got from friends, or copied out of various magazines. It’s a wonderful hodge podge.
In the book, my Granny called this recipe ‘German Krummeltorte’, but after a bit of Googling, I can’t actually find much evidence that Krummeltorte exists… if you’re German, please do let me know if you’ve heard of it before!
Regardless, it is a very, very tasty cake, and I just love how easy it is to make. I have actually changed the recipe just a little from her original, mostly just to simplify it (I have neither the time nor the inclination to use two different kinds of flour and two different kinds of sugar!), but the end result still turns out just beautifully.
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🥗 Ingredients and Substitutions
Here’s what you’ll need to make this easy apple cake recipe. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.
- cooking apples (e.g. Bramley apples) – these are not the sort of apple you’d usually want to eat raw (they’re a bit too sharp), but they cook up beautifully, holding their shape instead of turning mushy like some other apples do. If you can’t find specific cooking apples, just use what you can find.
- self-raising flour
- sugar – any kind of white sugar will be fine, e.g. caster sugar or granulated sugar
- egg
- butter (unsalted)
- ground cinnamon
🔪 Equipment
My favourite kind of cake pan is definitely a loose bottomed springform cake tin. It makes it so easy to get the cake out of the tin when it’s cooked – just run a knife around the edges to make sure it’s not stuck to the sides, then undo the clip, and push the entire cake up out of the pan. It couldn’t be easier!
Here’s a perfect one on Amazon, with great reviews:
🖨️ Printable Instructions
Easy Apple Crumble Cake
If you’ve cooked this recipe, don’t forget to leave a star rating!
Print Pin Comment(if you suffer from allergies, please double check all ingredients before eating)
Ingredients
- 680 g (~ 1 1/2 lb / ~ 2 large) cooking apples
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or nutmeg)
- 100 g (~ 3 1/2 oz) unsalted butter (plus a bit more for greasing the tin)
- 250 g (~ 1 2/3 cups) self-raising flour
- 200 g (~ 1 cup) granulated or caster sugar
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Peel and core the apples, and cut them into thin slices.
- Add the sliced apples to a pan with the cinnamon and a quarter of the sugar, and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes, mixing regularly, until slightly soft. Set aside.
- In a bowl, use clean hands to rub the butter and the flour together using your fingertips. The mixture should end up crumbly, like breadcrumbs. Don’t worry if some lumps remain – it doesn’t need to be perfect.
- Add most of the remaining sugar (just hold a little back for topping), and crack in the egg. Mix well with a fork.
- Heat the oven to 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F). Thoroughly grease a spring-form cake tin measuring around 8 inches – I usually just hold a block of butter and rub it all over the tin.
- Add around two-thirds of the cake mixture into the cake tin, and press it firmly into the tin using your knuckles or fingertips.
- Add the stewed apples, and spread them out into a fairly flat layer.
- Then, sprinkle the remaining cake mixture on top, along with any remaining sugar.
- Bake for around 40 minutes, or until golden brown. To serve warm, leave to stand for a few minutes, and then release from the spring-form pan. To serve cold, leave it to cool in the tin and then remove and slice.
- Serve with cream, ice cream or custard, if desired.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.
💭 Recipe FAQs
This easy apple cake is great served warm or cold, so if you like, you could fully cook the cake, and then serve it cold later. Alternatively, you could allow the apple mixture to cool fully, assemble the cake, and then store it in the fridge until you’re ready to bake and serve.
I love this apple cake served with a drizzle of cream, but custard or ice cream would also work well (especially if the cake is warm!).
It’s so well explained and I still managed to mess it up >.<. But still, looks delicious!
Oh dear! What went wrong?
well
First, I bought the wrong type of sugar but used it anyway. And after mixing everything and putting the apples on, I realised I have used way too much cake mixture on the bottom, so I didn’t have enough to put on the top and had to make more.
And when I was all happy thinking that maybe an angel would make my cake turn out just fine, I realise I have put it on 250 and not 190. Ok, since it have been just 20 minutes, I still had time to decrease the temperature.
But when it was ready…well, the cake mixture grew up a lot, like, really a lot. There were pieces here and there of apples..but still tastes good, actually. Kind raw,but ok
Yeah, I am a disaster.
Haha oh dear! Well I’m glad it still tasted okay after all that, hopefully if you make it again it will be even better :D
very nice! a little sweeter than is customary around here but the relatives loved it, so that is 6 germans approving of this recipe :D
also: apple crumble pie = Apfel-Streuselkuchen ^^
Oh wow that’s a great compliment coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about!! Thanks so much :) and yes, the ‘apple crumble cake’ bit was just my own description, wasn’t meant to be a direct translation :)
This is nice and I like how tasty it looks. Your pictures are awesome! I love how you showcase your dishes.
mmm this looks incredible!
I love a good thick and crisp topping and a light but plentiful crust! Your ripe looks gorgeous. X
omg this cake looks amazing, esp with the cream drizzled on top!
This looks amazing, Becca! My grandmother made a fantastic apple pie that my dad makes for Christmas every year- this looks a bit simpler and I can’t wait to try it :)
what a special recipe.. and eating desserts in December sounds very familiar as its my routine these days too :P
That looks delicious! I love that kind of simple apple cake with a bit of cinnamon in it. I think we would actually call that one Apfelstreuselkuchen over here, although the traditional recipe for the dough seems to be a bit different – but Krümeltorte sounds equally great to me ;-)
My god, I want to carry that whole thing around in my purse and speak in a German accent! Apple treats are the best, and this one looks like a blast to make!
Haha I’m not sure it would fit in your purse but I’d like to hear the accent :D