Picture this, a woman dressed up in a 50’s style shirtwaist dress, crisply ironed apron tied neatly around her waist, nylons, and heels complete the outfit, maybe pearls around her neck. The aroma of cinnamon and apple pie drifting through the kitchen while an electric coffee pot pumps out a dark brown liquid in the background. The dining room table is set and waiting for the guests to arrive. What am I describing? A coffee klatch about to happen.
Housewives back in the day used to live for these coffee klatches. With husbands off to work and kids off to school, this was an opportunity for neighborhood women to get together and chat about life. Pre Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Starbucks, the coffee klatch was essentially the precursor to today’s Meetups. A cup of coffee and a good coffee cake were all that was needed as the conversations whirled around the table.
Imagine people talking to people face-to-face and not pushing buttons on a phone to communicate. Excuse me for my little rant against social media taking over some of the social graces of communication.
Enough reminiscing (and ranting) – onward to the Apple Pie Coffee cake recipe! This one will make it to our Thanksgiving dinner table as a dessert. We have guests that don’t like pie (hard to believe but there are those people in this world – but we love them anyway), so I wanted to make something that would have the flavors of a pie without making a pie itself.
The recipe separates groups of ingredients to layer. The first group is flour, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. 
Use a pastry cutter to blend the ingredients and break down the butter.
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add eggs and vanilla.
Mix flour ingredients and creamed butter/sugar ingredients together to make the batter.
Alternate adding milk to smooth out the batter.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Mix chopped apples with apple butter. Remember the apple butter I made in an earlier post? Here’s the recipe in case you want to make your own. 
Ready to layer into coffee cake.
Prep bread pan or baking dish by spraying cooking oil on all sides and laying on a sheet of parchment paper.
Start layering with batter, add apple mixture, and continue layering until all ingredients are used.
Add streusel topping on top.
Tick tock, tick tock, wait for it……. fresh out of the oven this softish coffee cake is filled with warm flavorful apple pieces with a brown sugar topping. It reminds me of the coffee cake served at the old-fashioned coffee klatches. Oh so good! 
Makes 1 large bread loaf or 9 X 9 square baking dish
Save RecipeIngredients
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup milk
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup apple butter
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Grease a 9 X 5 loaf pan (9 X 9 square baking dish) with non-stick spray and lay the bottom with parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl using an mixer or handheld electric whisk.
- Add eggs and vanilla to butter and sugar and mix until incorporated.
- Whisk in the dry ingredients along with the milk and set aside.
- In another bowl stir together the diced apples with the apple butter and set that aside.
- Make the topping with the topping ingredients, cutting in the butter with a pastry cutter or two forks until it looks like a thick crumble and butter is well distributed.
- Pour half the batter in prepared pan, spoon half the apple mixture over, another layer of batter and remaining apples.
- Lastly sprinkle streusel topping over layered batter and apples.
- Bake 50 minutes to one hour.
Nutrition