Our Best Apple Desserts

French Apple Cake

This simple French cake is more apples than cake, held together with a light crumb and thin golden crust.

Invisible Apple Cake (Gâteau Invisible)

“Cake” is somewhat of a misnomer for this elegant dessert. Instead of open, airy and crumby, the texture is rich and dense, with slices of sweet-tart apples set in an egg-rich batter. During its long bake in the oven, the fruit slices and custard-like

By Hisham Ali HassanAugust 16, 2024

German Apple Cake (Apfelkuchen)

“This is one of those slam dunks that worked, and I loved it right away."

Apple Cake (Torta Bolzano)

This rustic apple cake sports crisp, deeply caramelized edges and a custardy interior, a texture achieved by coating a heap of thinly sliced fruit in crepe-like batter. We learned it from home cook Franca Giuliani in Padergnone, in the Trentino region

By Milk StreetNovember 11, 2025

Burnt Sugar Apple Upside-Down Cake

Drenched in bittersweet caramel, these silky soft apples create a glorious topping for a dead-easy, baked-in-the-skillet cake. Be sure to cook the fruit and caramel until the syrup bubbling at the edges is practically burnt. That rich, deep color is h

By Courtney HillJanuary 29, 2025

Austrian Apple Strudel

In Austria, Eva-Maria Steinbichler and her daughter, Petra Steinbichler, showed us how to prepare a proper apple strudel. The result was a light, barely there pastry surrounding a buttery, sweet-tart filling. To build impressive gluten strength in the

Christopher Kimball’s Double-Crust Apple Pie

It’s only a minor overstatement to say that apple pie is holy for Chris Kimball. This recipe is the product of decades of study.

By Chris KimballNovember 22, 2021

Apple Pie with Sour Cream Crust

For anyone who loves a double-crust apple pie but dreads the dough: sour cream makes this pastry rich, tender and genuinely easy to roll out.

By Rose HattabaughMarch 3, 2026

Romanian Apple Pie with Cinnamon and Walnuts (Plăcintă cu Mere)

Cookbook author Irina Georgescu introduced us to Romanian plăcintă cu mere, a hybrid of slab-style apple pie bar cookie. The traditional baked treat sandwiches lightly sweetened shredded apples between two layers of tender crust. For our version, we c

By Rose HattabaughFebruary 20, 2025

Italian-Style Apple Strudel

Many associate strudel only with Austria, but it also is common in northern Italy’s Trentino-Alto Adige region. For this version, we were inspired by the ingredients traditionally used there: golden raisins, citrus zest, pine nuts and, of course, appl

By Rose HattabaughSeptember 12, 2024

Tarte Tatin

Tarte tatin is made by baking apples in sugar under a blanket of pastry, then inverting the tart out of the pan for serving to reveal a stunner of a dessert: velvety, caramel-soaked fruits atop a tender, buttery crust. Said to have been invented by ac

By Hisham Ali HassanSeptember 11, 2024

Ricotta-Semolina Cake with Caramelized Apples

Adapted from “Summer Kitchens” by Olia Hercules, this cake-cheesecake hybrid is inverted out of the baking pan to reveal a layer of silky, buttery, golden-hued apples. The ricotta-based cake is deliciously rich but whipped egg whites folded into the b

By Wes MartinDecember 3, 2021