Easy Winter Cake: Wassail Crumble Cake with Orange Zest
Wassail Crumble Cake – apple and orange spice cake with an orange cinnamon crumble and an orange glaze.
Holiday Desserts
Happy Monday, friends! My apologies for skipping the last couple Mondays of new recipes! Life was a little bananas with Pinners Conference and getting things ready for holidays sales over on Shop.CakebyCourtney.com. (Which, by the way, is going to be really good!)
Now that Pinners is over, the only thing I’m thinking about are holiday desserts!
With Thanksgiving just over a week away, I’m planning on making my Sweet Potato Cake. I thought about coming up with something new, but time is just escaping me too quickly right now and that cake is one of my all-time favorite Thanksgiving desserts, so I’m sticking with an oldie this year!
Easy Christmas Dessert
But when it comes to Christmas desserts and Christmas cakes, I’m getting started right now!
Wassail Crumble Cake
To kick off my new Christmas cakes, today I’m sharing my new Wassail Crumble Cake. This cake uses my Apple Cider Donut Cake (with orange zest) as a base, and then I’ve added crumble and glaze toppings.
Have you made the Apple Cider Donut Cake yet? It’s one of my favorite cakes from the entire year and it’s so easy!
If you’ve made that one, I don’t think I’ll need to do much convincing about how delicious and moist this new Wassail Crumble Cake is!
I’ve added a good amount of orange zest to the cake batter and divided it into two 9″x5″ cake loaves – one for you and one to share with a friend!
Toppings
On top of each loaf, I added the most delicious orange cinnamon crumble (you’ll find a similar one with my French Apple Pie Cake) and a little orange glaze made with powdered sugar, orange zest, and orange juice.
Tips for Making This Wassail Crumble Cake
- This recipe works for two 9″x5″ cake loaves. I use these pans.
- If you only want one loaf, just split the recipe in half and bake for a little less time.
- To make cupcakes, you’ll want to reduce the baking time and temperature. Start with 325 degrees F and about 15 to 18 minutes baking time.
- With a little cinnamon buttercream, this cake could be really fun as a Christmas cake pop too!
- To make sure your cake rises evenly, check out my post about how to bake cakes that don’t sink.
- And to make sure you bake moist cakes every time, check out THIS post!
Enjoy!
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Wassail Crumble Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 3 cups (360 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp (5 g) ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp (1 g) nutmeg
- 1 tsp (5.6 g) salt
- 1 1/2 tbsp (21 g) baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups (300 g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (110 g) brown sugar
- 2 tbsp orange zest
- 1 cup (224 g) vegetable oil
- 3 eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup (250 g) applesauce at room temperature
- 1 cup (248 g) apple cider at room temperature
- 1 tsp (5.6 g) vanilla extract
For the Crumble
- 1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (110 g) brown sugar packed
- 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter cold
- 1 tbsp orange zest
- 1 tsp (2.5 g) ground cinnamon
For the Glaze
- 1/2 cup (63 g) powdered sugar
- 3 tbsp orange juice
- 1 tbsp orange zest
Instructions
For the Crumble
- Combine the ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl.
- Using a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until you've formed pea-sized clusters. Set aside.
For the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two 9"x5" loaf pans with non-stick spray and then dust with flour. Set aside.
- In a medium size mixing bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and baking powder. Whisk to combine. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the sugar, brown sugar, orange zest and oil. Mix on medium speed to combine.
- Add the eggs to the sugar mixture and mix on medium speed for about two minutes.
- Add the applesauce and vanilla. Mix to combine.
- With the mixer on low speed, add ⅓ of the flour mixture, followed by half of the apple cider. Continue alternating the flour mixture and the apple cider, finishing with the flour mixture. Mix until no streaks of flour remain. The batter will be slightly thin, not thick.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pans. Divide the crumble in two and add the crumble to the top of each loaf pan. Bake the cake loafs for about 50 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs on it.
- Let the cake cool for about 30 minutes in the pan before inverting the cakes into a plate for serving or to cool completely.
For the Glaze
- Combine the powdered sugar, orange juice and zest in a small bowl. Drizzle the glaze onto each cake loaf.
I am making this for thanksgiving! How far in advance can this be made?
You can freeze it until you’re ready for it!