This is an old-fashioned, generously filled cake in the best sense: moist with apple, fragrant with warm spice, and studded with walnuts, cranberries, and little flashes of crystallized ginger. It has the sturdy, deeply satisfying character of a proper autumn cake—equally welcome with afternoon tea, as a simple dessert with softly whipped cream, or sliced the following morning with coffee.
The flavour improves overnight, when the apples and spices have had time to settle into one another. It also travels beautifully, which makes it an excellent candidate for an autumn lunch, a weekend away, or one of those occasions when arriving with a cake is the most useful thing one can do.
Apple Cranberry Ginger Bundt Cake
Ingredients
Scale
- 390 g or 3 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 9 ml or 1 ¾ tsp baking powder
- 2.5 ml or ½ tsp baking soda
- 5 ml or 1 tsp kosher salt
- 15 ml or 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 2.5 ml or ½ tsp ground allspice
- 2 ml or ¼ tsp ground cloves
- 75 g or ¾ cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
- 90 g or ¾ cup dried cranberries
- 80 g or ½ cup crystallized ginger, chopped
- 450–500 g or 1 lb (about 3 cups) baking apples (Honeycrisp, Golden Delicious, Gala, Pink Lady, Braeburn, or Jonagold), peeled, cored, and cut into 1.25 cm or ½” pieces
- 100 g or ½ cup granulated sugar
- 100 g or ½ cup packed dark brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 375 ml or 1 ½ cups canola oil
- 10 ml or 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Cinnamon sugar, optional, for finishing
Instructions
Prepare the Pan and Oven
- Arrange a rack in the centre of the oven and heat to 175°C or 350°F. Thoroughly butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan, taking particular care to reach every crevice. Alternatively, coat it generously with baking spray immediately before adding the batter.
Combine the Dry Ingredients
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves until evenly combined.
Prepare the Fruit and Nuts
- In another medium bowl, combine the walnuts, cranberries, crystallized ginger, apples, and brown sugar. Toss until the fruit and nuts are evenly coated. The brown sugar helps distribute the add-ins through the batter and gives the apples a head start on their lovely caramelised flavour.
Make the Batter
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs on medium speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Add the oil and vanilla and beat until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute more.
- Add the granulated sugar and continue beating until the mixture is smooth, slightly thickened, and glossy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing on low speed just until incorporated after each addition. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Do not overmix.
Fold in the Apples and Bake
- Remove the bowl from the mixer. Using a large silicone spatula, fold in the apple mixture until the fruit, nuts, and cranberries are evenly distributed throughout the thick batter.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan and smooth the surface. Tap the pan firmly on a folded kitchen towel on the counter a few times to settle the batter and release any trapped air.
- Bake for 60–70 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs attached. The cake should be deeply bronzed and beginning to pull very slightly from the sides of the pan.
Cool and Serve
- Leave the cake in the pan for 15 minutes, then invert it onto a wire rack and allow it to cool completely. If you like, dust lightly with cinnamon sugar before serving.
- The cake is excellent on the day it is baked, but even better the next day.
Notes
- For the most reliable texture, weigh the apples after peeling and coring. A firm, flavourful apple such as Honeycrisp, Golden Delicious, Gala, Pink Lady, Braeburn, or Jonagold works well.
- If you are concerned about the apple pieces sinking, toss them with 15 ml or 1 tbsp flour before combining them with the remaining fruit and nuts.
- Pecans may be substituted for the walnuts, and a handful of golden raisins may be added with the cranberries. For a slightly different direction, replace the allspice and cloves with 2.5 ml or ½ tsp ground cardamom.
- Adapted from Sweet Violet’s Ghost by J. A. Whiting.
