French Apple Pie Cake – apple cider cake layers with shortbread frosting, apple pie filling, streusel crumble and vanilla bean buttercream.
Thanksgiving Pie Cake
Finishing up my Thanksgiving Pie Cake series with my French Apple Pie Cake. Today’s Thanksgiving cake is inspired by my mom’s Apple Pie. She is a master at pies! I remember vividly many occasions in the kitchen by her side learning the art of pie crusts. Her mom taught her, and my mom taught me. I’m sure she cringes a bit every time I talk about my dislike for pie. I loved learning from her, but I never grew to love pie the way she does.
Instead or recreating my mom’s pie recipes each Thanksgiving, my new French Apple Pie is my tribute to a women who rolled so much pie dough in her life, it makes my hands ache just thinking about it. So much time and love goes into each pie she makes.
So, mom, this one is for you!
French Apple Pie Cake
For my apple pie cake, I started with apple cider cake layers. I recommend using a quality brand of apple cider. I actually got mine at Rowley’s Red Barn in Utah. The flavor is incredible and tastes more homemade than I could ever do myself. I think the key in a quality apple cider is that the flavor is much stronger than a cheap store brand version. And flavor is always number one for me.
For a pie crust element, I used my shortbread crumbs to make a shortbread frosting (similar to Milk Bar) to include in between my layers. I then topped the shortbread frosting with apple pie filling and a streusel crumble for a little crunch.
The cake is then covered in a whipped vanilla bean frosting, which kind of reminds me of the ice cream if you’re having your pie al la mode.
Remember, if you have any left over apple pie filling or streusel (which I’m pretty sure you will), serve a little extra with each slice of cake.
Video Tutorial
Could you also bake this on a half sheet baking pan and cut out the cake size (hoping to turn this into a 6 inch cake)?
You would need to half the recipe or you could do four 6-inch round pans with this full recipe.
Is the vanilla bean paste a must or is there a substitute? If it is strongly recommended where to you recommend buying? Thanks, love your cakes!
I do really love it and if you have a coupon for Joanns or Micahels craft stores, you can use it on the vanilla bean paste there and it’s a much better price. If you can’t find it, you can use pure vanilla extract/
Just made this. Soooooo good!! I got lazy and made a few mods: 2 layers only (cooked longer) and because I didn’t want to drag out my blender I just mixed the shortbread crumbles with the streusel. Next time I’ll try it to spec, but this was still a really amazing cake. The caramelized apple juice soaks into this cake wonderfully. Thank you!
Yay! I’m so happy to hear you loved it!
So excited about making this recipe! BUT my crumble turned out absolutely awful, more like sand, and totally burnt with the amount of time suggested 🙁 Any suggestions? Afraid to try again and waste more flour…
Oh no! The streusel crumble or the shortbread crumb for the frosting? I’m guessing the streusel? I’m going to adjust the bake time in the recipe.
Just the streusel crumble, I should have taken it out after the first 10 min the edges were started to get a little too brown already. The shortbread crumb turned out perfect though!
Hi Courtney! Is there really not any sugar in the shortbread crumbles? I know the powdered sugar will make the frosting sweet enough but it seems strange to not have sugar in the shortbread. Can’t wait to try this one for Father’s Day! Thanks 🙂
I made this for Fathers Day and subbed apple juice for the milk in the shortbread frosting. It was great! This cake is fantastic. Thanks for another great recipe 🙂
Yay! Glad it worked out!
Going to make this for Thanksgiving this year but due to travel and other commitments I’ll need to make it a few days ahead of time. I’m concerned about freezing and thawing with the fruit filling. Do you think it would be ok or do you think the moisture from the thawing apples would make the crumble soggy?
If you keep it in the freezer until the day you are ready to serve, it will be ok!
Hi, Courtney!
I was wondering if I could freeze this cake once it is frosting and decorated completely? Thank you so much!
Yes! Just wrap it in saran after it is frozen!
Hi! Would I be able to substitute apple juice For Apple cider? I’m in the U.K. and I’m not sure Apple cider is the same thing over here… thanks!
Yes!
Made this cake for Thanksgiving and it is delicious, however it took significantly longer than an hour to make. There are 5 components to the cake, plus assembling. It easily took 3+ hours to make all of the components and assemble it. Like one of the other comments, my crumble also burned the first time I made it so I had to make another batch at a lower temperature (I have a thermometer and my oven temperature is correct). It is worth the time and effort but there should be a more realistic estimate for how long it will take to make.