Karen Goodman | Future Expat

Easy Dessert Recipe: Apple Pie Coffee Cake

Dec 27, 2013 | Desserts, My Recipes, Reader Favorites | 2 comments

I was looking for a quick dessert to bring to a family dinner one day and my pantry was really bare. I decided to see if I could come up with something to make with the apple in my fridge and stumbled on this recipe on Sunday Baker.

A quick shout out on Facebook mentioning that I had to run to the grocery to buy one apple to make a dessert, and my next door neighbor offered to give me one from her fridge.

Yes, the tradition from my Mom’s generation of helping your neighbors with missing ingredients still lives on thanks to Facebook!

One of the things that Food Network’s show Chopped has taught me is that you can almost always get away with substituting ingredients.

When I opened the milk carton and realized it was WAY past using, I decided to use the powdered milk I always keep on hand to boost the calcium in recipes or for occasions like this one. But when I went to the pantry, I remembered that I had recently bought powdered buttermilk for some other recipe and decided to use that instead.

I’m so glad I did.

The original recipe looks like it has a very cake style fluffy texture. My recipe was much more like the soft bits and pieces between the apples in an apple pie.

If you don’t have buttermilk, feel free to use regular milk or half & half. But grab some powdered buttermilk the next time you are in the store and give it try. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had before and I loved it.

Even my picky dessert relatives cleared their plates, so they must have agreed with me.

Apple Pie Coffee Cake

Ingredients:

2 large apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup buttermilk (powdered buttermilk with water works fine in this recipe)
1 egg, beaten

Topping:
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

To get started, spray an 8×8 baking dish with cooking spray and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. If you are using powdered buttermilk like I did, then add it at this point too.

In another bowl, mix together the melted butter, egg, vanilla, and milk (or water if you are using powdered milk).

Combine the wet and dry ingredients gently, being careful to not overmix. The batter should be slightly lumpy. Add in the chopped apples and spread the batter into your baking dish.