Apples are everywhere, from restaurants and grocery stores to everyday recipes, and because of that, we think little about them. But when the bounty of crisp and sweet apples is in season, we cannot help but snag a bushel, and if you happen to have tons of apples with you, the best thing to do is to bake with them.
We are sharing 20 apple desserts that go beyond apple pies and will redefine sweet satisfaction.
Taking a bite of apple pie bread early in the morning with a cup of coffee is as comforting as it gets. This apple pie bread has fragrant spices typical of apple pie, and the succulent pieces of baked apple make it incredibly moist.
You can also enjoy it as a healthy after-dinner dessert. Heat it up in the oven and enjoy the tasty treat with a pat of butter or cream cheese.
Baked Apples is a relatively quick dessert you can make that everyone loves. Tart and sweet apples are cored, thinly sliced, and added to the baking dish before being stuffed with a crunchy, sweet cinnamon oat filling.
The apples are then baked till juicy, warm, and tender. The tartness of the apple is a beautiful contrast against the spiced crumbles. For extra texture and flavor, serve with salted caramel or vanilla ice cream and a sprinkling of toasted hazelnuts.
An apple cobbler is perfectly sweet and spiced, with an irresistibly tender and crunchy crust on top. Making it is as simple as it gets. Freshly sliced apples are tossed in sugar, cinnamon, and a bit of flour, topped with biscuit batter, and baked in the oven.
Ensure you use apples suited for baking, such as Golden Delicious, Jonagold, Jonathan, Honey Crisp, Granny Smith, and Gala, to name just a few. They don’t turn to mush when baked.
An upside-down apple cake is gooey, comforting, and irresistible. It comes together in 20 minutes and the entire cake is assembled upside down, hence the name.
Start by pouring caramel sauce into the prepared cake pan. After that, top it with apple slices and pour the cake batter over the apples. Once the cake is ready, it is flipped right side up. The caramel sauce and baked apple juices seep into the cake, making it flavorful and moist.
Sauteed apples are the quicker versions of apple pie minus the crust. They taste like apple pie fillings and are great on their own or as a topping over pancakes.
In this recipe, apples are sautéed in a mixture of brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Once sauteed, the apples become tender yet crispy enough and are coated in a delicious sauce. You can serve them with vanilla ice cream.
The first dessert that comes to everyone’s mind when they think of apples is probably apple pie. It is a quintessential apple dessert, and excluding it from this list would be a sin. This warm, cozy, classic dessert will spark joy whenever you bake it.
Little apple pieces are tossed in cinnamon, sugar, and flour and baked in a pie crust. The result is a golden, flaky pie crust with an irresistibly saucy center. Check out our list of different types of pie for a detailed look.
Apple-cinnamon fruit bars are perfect for potlucks and parties. It is a fuss-free recipe that comes together in a single bowl.
Melted butter, dark brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, oats, cinnamon, vanilla, chopped apples, and pecans are mixed in a bowl. The mixture is then baked and cooled before serving. The result is a dessert with crispy cinnamon brown sugar edges and a gooey apple pecan center.
These chewy salted caramel candies with a punch of spiced apple cider are a perfect bite. They are so buttery and sweet you won’t stop eating them. To make them, boil a quart of fresh apple cider until you are left with thick and syrupy apple impact. Then, you expand this syrup with butter, cream, sugar, salt and cinnamon.
Once the mixture is ready, set them in the fridge for about an hour. After that, sprinkle it with sea salt and cut it into bite-sized pieces.
Chunks of sweet apples and buttery rum-flavored cake batter are baked to perfection for a tender apple rum spice cake. The name might sound intimidating, but it is simple to make.
However, there is nothing simple about its flavor. It is fluffy, moist, loaded with warm apple flavors and notes of rich caramel, and heavily infused with fragrant spices like ginger and caramel. It is then finished off with the creamiest frosting for decadence.
Caramel-dipped apples are delicious and fun to make, decorate, and eat. Granny Smith or Honeycrisp apples are dipped in rich, buttery caramel until fully coated and coated with any toppings. They are then left in the fridge to set.
The options for toppings are endless. You can add mini chocolate chips, nuts, sprinkles, crushed candy bars, crushed Oreos, and many more. The slightly tart, crunchy apple against the decadent caramel makes it a perfect fall dessert.
An apple crisp is a classic fall dessert. It is made with all your pantry staples and takes much less time and effort than apple pie.
Thinly sliced apples are coated in a cinnamon glaze and baked with an oatmeal crumb topping. You do not have to bake it. It is that straightforward. When you let it rest, the apples become tender and the flavors meld together.
It tastes even more divine with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
An apple pie parfait is a fuss-free, no-bake dessert that has all of the flavors of apple pie without all the effort and hard work.
Tart and crisp apples are tossed in sweet, spiced apple butter and layered with a creamy filling of vanilla-spiked whipped cream and crumbled graham cracker.
These parfaits would make a wonderful end to a meal and if you have leftovers, it keeps in the fridge for three days.
A babka is a sweet braided bread that originated in the Jewish community. Leftover challah dough is rolled out and spread with fillings. The dough is then rolled up, halved, and twisted before baking.
Unlike normal bread, it is dense and slightly dry but has a moist and gooey center filling. In an apple babka recipe, the filling consists of sliced apples that are seasoned with brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and ginger.
An apple crumble has the all-sweet, decadent flavor you crave when fall rolls around. In this recipe, apples are spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. This apple mixture is layered with crumbly toppings.
The contrasting flavors of the apples, spices, and crumble toppings are crisp and delicious. If you want a healthier version, go light on the sugar and let sweetness come through from the apples instead.
An apple coffee cake has the best of two worlds: apple and coffee. This combination works because the sweetness of the apples is a nice contrast against the earthy and discernibly bitter coffee. It also makes the cake extra moist and tender.
In this recipe, you make an apple cake batter, sprinkle it with a cinnamon streusel topping, and bake it. The moist, soft cake center with the toasted and crunchy toppings makes for a perfect bite.
You can always make bakery-style muffins at home and bump up your savings. There is nothing complicated about this recipe, and you likely already have all the ingredients you need at home.
The muffin batter, much like cake batter, is topped with cinnamon crumb topping and baked in the oven. Once cooled, it is drizzled with vanilla icing. This scrumptious muffin is full of warm cinnamon and crisp apple flavor.
If you cannot get enough of apple pie flavor but want something other than apple pie, make an apple pie ice cream. The silky and creamy ice cream contrasts beautifully with the tender baked apples, and the crunch of pie crust crumbles.
You can make the ice cream with an ice cream maker if you have one. But if not, mix cream cheese, condensed milk, vanilla extract, and whipped cream and freeze it with the baked apples and pie crust crumble.
If you have tons of apples about to go bad, make applesauce. It lasts four to six days and can be used to top pancakes or French toast, make baked goods like muffins and quick bread, or an applesauce cake.
Peeled, cored, and chopped apples are cooked over medium heat with sugar, water, and cinnamon. Once they are tender, blend them until smooth.
An optional step is to add lemon juice while they are cooking. The tartness elevated the natural flavor of the apples.
Apple pancakes are so delicious they should be part of everyone’s regular breakfast rotation.
Flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar, and salt are whisked in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, melted butter, egg yolk, vanilla, and milk are combined. The dry ingredients are folded into the wet batter and combined with chopped apples. The apple pancake mixture creates a more custard-like texture than a regular pancake.
Apple turnovers are basically pocket-sized apple pies. An apple and cinnamon filling is encased in a flaky, buttery pie crust and baked till golden brown.
You can always buy the pie crust from the supermarkets or make them from scratch. There are tons of recipes for it online.
Apple turnovers can be served warm, fresh out of the oven, with a dusting of icing sugar or whipped cream. Once the turnovers cool down, slice the pie in half and squeeze a generous amount of cream.
