Irish Apple Cake With Custard Sauce Recipe

With a buttery streusel topping, Irish apple cake is tender and spiced to perfection. Drizzled with a warm custard sauce, this is one dessert you won’t want to miss! Apples complement cakes, cobblers, and pastries beautifully. For your next baking adventure, you’ll have to try an apple galette, tart, or danish!

Traditional Irish Apple Cake Recipe

If you’re a sucker for apple desserts like me, you’re going to love this one! Irish apple cake is a traditional dessert that doubles as both a breakfast and a dessert. The texture is a little more dense than a sponge cake, like a coffee cake! It’s nice and moist on the inside, loaded with bright pieces of apple. Top it off with a warm custard sauce, and this apple cake is completely irresistible! You’ve got to try it. It will be a fantastic ending to any meal! Cinnamon is added to the cake for a hint of warm flavor. What better spice to pair apples with? Buttery streusel, moist cake, and spiced apples is a heavenly combination. It’s the perfect balance of tangy and sweet! Trust me, you won’t be able to stop at one slice. Eat it as-is or serve it up with a scoop of ice cream on top. It’s delicious either way!

Ingredients for Irish Apple Cake

The ingredient list for this cake is on the longer side, but trust me, they’re all super simple ingredients that you’ll be able to find in your pantry. They combine to create something so amazing! It’s light, fresh, and full of fresh apples. All measurements can be found below in the printable recipe card.

Unsalted Butter: Added for a rich flavor and to keep the cake moist.Granulated Sugar: White sugar gives your cake sweetness and melts down smoothly.Vanilla: For a deeper flavor and sweetness.Eggs: Needed to bind everything together!All-Purpose Flour: All-purpose flour has a low protein content and keeps cakes nice and light. Cake flour works too but will alter the texture slightly.Baking Powder: Needed for the Irish apple cake to rise properly.Cinnamon: It’s the perfect warm spice!Salt: Add to enhance overall flavor.Milk: I always use whole milk when I bake to bump up the fat content. The more fat in a cake, the moister it is.Granny Smith Apples: The tartness of granny smith keeps this dessert from being overly sweet. Other baking apples like honeycrisp work well, too, if you’re wanting something less tart.

Streusel Topping

All-Purpose Flour: This acts as the structure of your streusel.Rolled Oats: Added for a little extra texture!Granulated Sugar: For sweetening up the topping a little.Salt: A pinch is all you need to keep it from tasting bland.Unsalted Butter: To keep the streusel tender instead of hard.

Custard Drizzle

Whole Milk: A higher fat content to keep it nice and creamy.Salt: Just a little to enhance flavor.Egg Yolks: Egg yolks thicken the custard and give it that rich flavor we all love!Granulated Sugar: Added to sweeten the sauce up a bit.Vanilla Extract: I add vanilla to give the custard a more complex flavor.

How to Make Irish Apple Cake

This Irish apple cake recipe is broken up into 3 simple parts. Don’t let it intimidate you, all of the prep work is super easy! Trust me, it’s so rewarding when you pull this amazing cake out of the oven! Smells great, too!

Preparing Streusel and Custard Sauce

Room Temperature Wet Ingredients: In order for your cake batter to mix together smoothly, warmer temperatures are a must! I like to put any dairy or eggs used for baking out on the counter for 30 minutes before use.Streusel Isn’t Crumbly: This can happen if you over-mix. I always like to form streusel pieces by hand to keep the mixture from becoming like batter.Using Brown Sugar: For the streusel topping, brown sugar can be substituted for granulated sugar. I’ll use brown sugar if I want my streusel to have a deeper flavor. It also helps the crumbly pieces to form.Adding Nuts: Nothing complements spiced apples quite as well as chopped nuts! Walnuts and pecans are great additions to this Irish apple cake.

In the Refrigerator: Stored in an airtight container, your Irish apple cake will stay good for 5-7 days.In the Freezer: In an airtight container or freezer bag, your cake will last for 2-3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before serving.

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All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods and portion sizes per household.