My Favorite Fall Cake

Hi everyone,

I don’t know why, but I much prefer eating cake in the fall and winter than in the spring and summer. Probably because enjoying a cup of coffee with a nice slice of cake feels even cozier when it gets colder outside.

I always have a favorite cake in the fall. It doesn’t stand a chance all summer long, but it pops up regularly every fall: poppy seed cake with crumble topping.

A poppy seed plait (yeast cake) like this fills the entire baking sheet, and it freezes well, too. It tastes best when it’s still lukewarm. I grind the poppy seeds myself in the coffee grinder beforehand—that makes them much more aromatic. I always add a little marzipan or a few raisins to the poppy seed mixture. And I mix the crumble topping with lemon juice.

Do you have a favorite fall cake, too? Then please, share it with us. I want to make us all crave cake.

Warm regards from Ina

Oh Ina, I’d love to be your guest right now. That looks sooo delicious—my mouth is already watering...

My favorite cake this time of year is the sheet pan gingerbread, which I’ve featured here before. I’ll be making that again soon. In the next few days, I’m going to try a brand-new recipe I found online that I really like. An apple cake with rolled oats and walnuts.

By the way, I’m the same way—I have a much bigger appetite for cake in the fall and winter. In the summer, I’m more into homemade ice cream.

Oh, I love baking and eating cake all year round.

Ina, your poppy seed cake looks soooo delicious. And crumble topping—I’d love to try it.

  I don’t have a specific cake for fall. But I do have one for the cold season. I bake it starting in mid-November and then again in February, when the cold season is coming to an end.

They’re rum slices, and my family loves them—probably because we only have them twice a year. 

The marzipan would be a deal-breaker for me—you could chase me across the Main River at -30° with marzipan—but otherwise, your poppy seed braid sounds delicious, Ina.
My favorite cake is apple cake, no matter what kind; I could practically sit inside it, along with a delicious cup of tea and a dollop of cream—yum yum yum :-)

Love, Inge

Wow, Ina—that looks amazing 😲😍
The only thing that’s a bit confusing is that you wrote “poppy seed cake” 🤔
I grind my poppy seeds in the Thermomix (I love it), and my poppy seed cake is a sheet cake (without raisins—I don’t like them) made with quark-oil dough and crumble topping 😋 

These days, I only bake cakes when guests are coming over; otherwise, there’s too much left over—and I’d rather fill the freezer with meat and the like instead of cake 😇
We don’t eat that much cake, or rather, “opinions are divided” in our household: my husband loves anything with whipped cream, cream, and lots of moisture, while my son (who’s usually at his girlfriend’s these days) and I love sponge cakes 🙄

But when we do have cake, we prefer it in the fall and winter,
and for me, fall just isn’t complete without a “covered apple cake” 😉
And in winter, “Ulmer Brot” = spiced cake 🥰

Ina, your cake looks so delicious—especially with the crumble topping and marzipan. My mouth is watering!
In the fall, I like to bake Donauwellen. I also often bake a yeast plait with raisins, dried apricots, marzipan, and almonds. During Advent and Christmas, I make a fruit cake with chocolate.
Warm regards from Marina 

Oh, that would be right up my husband’s alley—he’s a huge marzipan fan. I don’t like it at all, though, and I agree with Inge: apple is always a winner! But my husband doesn’t like apple cake, so it’s not that simple here.... 😂

In the fall, I love apple and plum cakes. My husband can’t eat them because of his dental surgery.
That’s why we often have lemon cake (a simple, light loaf-cake batter), and every now and then a marble cake.
Right now, Black Forest cake is his favorite. Cherry jam without fruit pieces (the kind with an “S”...) serves as a substitute for cherries. I’ve already tried it with three different kinds of jam.
I also really like sheet-baked gingerbread.

@everyone:
Your cake cravings all sound delicious, too. Apple cake has been mentioned several times. Yes, that’s definitely one of those fall cakes you can enjoy any time. It’s apple season, after all, so it’s the perfect choice—and you can easily vary it, whether with crumble topping, vanilla pudding, nuts, or cinnamon...

The sheet pan gingerbread that Monika always bakes is still on my to-do list, too. But it’s still a little too early for that here.

Keep enjoying fall and its sweet temptations. Maybe we need to put on some “winter weight” in the form of delicious cake to get us through the winter :-))

Warm regards, Ina