Perfect Apple Butter Pound Cake

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This Apple butter pound cake with apple cider glaze is the ultimate fall bunt cake! It's full of incredible spiced apple flavor from the apple butter and is perfect for celebrating the season!

This cream cheese apple pound cake is filled with homemade or store-bought apple butter and is topped with an apple cider glaze, making it full of all Autumn's best flavors!

Apple Butter Pound cake on a marble slab with an apple glaze. Its then topped with dried apple slices and is on a brown stone background.

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Why you will love this recipe:
Key Ingredients:
Step by step instructions:
Tips for success:
FAQ
Looking for more Fall recipes? Check these out!
Perfect Apple Butter Pound Cake

Why you will love this recipe:

Apple butter is a fall staple and my favorite condiment once Autumn hits; it's made from apples, spices, and sweeteners. Its tastes exactly what I think a fall harvest tastes like. This recipe is great with both store-bought butter or this stovetop bourbon apple butter recipe.

This pound cake with apple butter is made with cream cheese, making it extremely moist, a bit tangy, and totally delightful. But even though it's made with cream cheese and it's a pound cake, it's not overly dense. It has just a touch of baking powder, which gives the bunt cake a little additional rise and helps create a lighter crumb.

Pound cakes are one of my favorite cakes to make because they are so easy, flavorful, and beautiful. If pound cakes are also your thing, this strawberry pound cake, and lemon poppyseed pound cake are equally amazing.

Key Ingredients:

Self Rising Flour: a low-protein self-rising flour like White Lily or Weisenberger Mills gives this pound cake a tender crumb and a slight rise. White Lily and Weisenberger Mills flour are more similar to cake flour than regular all-purpose flour because of their low protein content. This kind of flour makes a lighter crumb, which is very beneficial in a denser cake like a pound cake. Self-rising flour is also beneficial because it already has rising agents and salt blended into it.

Butter: butter provides flavor and structure to the cake; there is one stick of butter for each cup of flour, as is traditional for pound cakes.

Cream Cheese: cream cheese adds moisture, texture, and a tangy flavor to the cake. This is a very moist crumb, and the cream cheese help give its moistness.

Apple Butter: apple butter is made by cooking down apples in spices and a little sweetener. For this recipe, I use this bourbon apple butter which is made with apple cider, bourbon, brown sugar, and maple syrup but store-bought apple butter works as well!

Eggs: eggs traditionally give these cakes their rise; there is enough air whipped into them to cause them to rise. This recipe also gets its rising help from the baking soda and powder in the flour.

See recipe card for quantities.

Step by step instructions:

A mixing bowl full of beaten sugar, butter, and cream cheese with one egg yolk sitting in the middle.

Beat the butter and cream cheese until fully blended. Add in the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Then add in the eggs, one at a time beating after each addition.

Apple butter sitting on top of cake batter in a mixing bowl.

Mix in the vanilla and apple butter.

The flour sitting on top of the mixed batter.

Slowly add in the flour and beat on low until it's all been incorporated.

The cake batter in a bunt an sitting on a brown stone table.

Add to a well-greased bunt mold (at least 10 cup capacity), and tap on the counter to remove any air bubbles.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 - 20 minutes or until the top is browned and a knife comes out clean.

Make the glaze by whisking the apple cider and powdered sugar until no lumps remain. Then pour over the cooled cake.

Tips for success:

To get your butter and cream cheese to room temp, place them into a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds.
Beat the sugar into the cream cheese and butter until lots of air is incorporated. About three-plus minutes.
Slowly add in the flour; it will go everywhere if you try to add it in all at once.
Tap the bunt pan on the counter to get the air bubbles out of the batter.
Let the cake cool in the bunt pan for 10-15 minutes, and then turn out to fully cool.

FAQ

How is the recipe best stored?

This cake will keep for up to three days in an air-tight container.

Can I use all-purpose flour?

Yes, the cake will be denser, and you will need to add 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt for each cup of flour. But using White Lily self-rising flour or pastry flour combined with the mentioned baking powder and salt will give you the best results.

A slice of apple butter cake on a spekled plate with dried apple slices.

Looking for more Fall recipes? Check these out!