Applesauce Cake with Brown Butter Glaze

This old-fashioned Applesauce Cake with Brown Butter Glaze is moist, tender, and full of down-home flavor. Topped with a rich, nutty glaze, it’s a Southern-style treat that’s perfect for breakfast, brunch, dessert, or enjoying with a hot cup of coffee.

Course Cake, Dessert

Cuisine American, Southern

Keyword applesauce-cake, applesauce-cake-recipe

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 1 30

Cooling time 4

Total Time 5 50

Servings pieces

Calories 565kcal

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup roughly chopped pecans toasted and divided
1 cup unsalted butter softened
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
4 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves or allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 1/2 cups sweetened or unsweetened applesauce
Brown Butter Glaze:
1/2 cup salted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1-3 Tbsp half and half or cream plus additional as needed

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread pecans in a single layer on a baking sheet. Toast for 6-8 minutes until fragrant then set aside to cool. Lower oven temperature to 325°F.
Applesauce Cake: In large bowl use an electric mixer to cream together butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes on medium-high speed, or until light and fluffy.
On medium speed, add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
In a separate medium size mixing bowl use a whisk to sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cloves, nutmeg and ginger.
Lower the speed of the mixer and to the creamed mixture add the dry ingredients alternately with applesauce beginning and ending with flour. Mix until fully combined. Add 1 cup pecans, mixing in by hand. Pour batter evenly in pan.
Butter and flour a 10-inch Tube pan (Angel food cake pan) or spray with baking spray.
Bake in center of oven for 1hr 20 minutes - 1hr 30 minutes. Check at 45 minutes and lay foil on top to prevent over browning. Continue to bake until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center shows moist crumbs.
Remove from oven and cool in pan for 20 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Brown Butter Glaze: Melt butter over medium-low heat in a heavy bottomed saucepan. simmer for 5-10 minutes until amber in color. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl leaving as much of browned sediment behind as possible. (You can also strain through a fine mesh sieve) Add powdered sugar and vanilla to the mixing bowl, whisking or beating with an electric mixer until combined. Add half and half 1 Tbsp at a time until drizzle consistency.
Drizzle glaze over cooled cake and garnish with reserved 1/4 cup pecans. Store chilled in an airtight container.

Notes

Applesauce - You can use homemade applesauce or your favorite brand of store-bought applesauce. You can use plain or cinnamon spiced applesauce for this cake.
Big Cake Big Pan - I highly recommend baking this cake in a tube pan, also called an angel food pan, to give it plenty of room to expand while baking. Skip a bundt pan for this recipe.
Optional Topping - The nutty sweet brown butter glaze is what sets this applesauce cake apart. That said, you can enjoy this cake with a simple dusting of powdered sugar, too.
Raisins - Traditional applesauce cake often includes raisins. You can add 1 cup of raisins to the batter along with the pecans with no other adjustments needed.
Nuts - Toasted walnuts can be substituted in place of pecans.
Brown Butter Tip - When browning the butter for the glaze, the milk solids left behind will turn dark. Be careful, or the butter will burn, if it's left unattended. When pouring it into the mixing bowl, try to leave as much dark sediment behind in the pot as possible. Please note, some darker flecks may slip through. I actually like this, but if it bothers you, strain the butter through a fine mesh sieve to remove.
Serving Options - You can serve a slice of this cake warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, at room temperature or chilled.

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