Double Up On This Key Ingredient For More Flavorful Apple Cider Cake

If you want more of all things fall, the right apple cider cake recipe has the potential to deliver the best smells and flavors of the season directly into your mouth. Playing off the annual apple cider donuts that are covered in cinnamon and sugar, apple cider cakes are baked to tender perfection. These moist cakes are spiced with autumnal delight in mind. Even Martha Stewart warns that if you're a sucker for the apple cider donuts sold in batches at farmers markets, you'll have a hard time stopping at just one piece of apple cider cake – it's essentially a giant donut made to celebrate fall.

While you're whipping up this cake in your kitchen, your home will be filled with mouth-watering aromas. And we have one tip that can take your cake from a basic recipe to one that could be sold alongside those sugary apple cider donuts found at the outdoor markets.

Cook's Illustrated encourages bakers to pack recipes with as many apples as possible: think apple sauce, apple cider, and, of course, apples. By using both apples and a generous amount of reduced apple cider, you are guaranteed to pull a light, flavorful cake out of your oven. When compared to apple juice, apple cider is more concentrated, per Cook's Illustrated, lending to flavorful recipes that could be taken straight from upstate New York apple orchards. Grandbaby Cakes insists that using both apple cider and applesauce ensures cakes are presentable batches of buttery, moist deliciousness.

This batter will be wet, however, so Cook's Illustrated suggests using a bundt pan for baking (the hole helps the heat cook the middle of your cake so that each apple-filled inch is cooked to chewy perfection). Mix reduced apple cider into the batter, brush it onto the baked cake itself, and stir into the icing. Don't be shy. Don't have a bundt pan at home? Try an apple cider coffee cake recipe instead, and be sure to add in an apple cider reduction and extra applesauce for an unmatched dessert that puts autumn on a plate.