Tender GF Apple Cake
Make this incredibly tender, moist, custard-like GF apple cake any time of year. It smells amazing and doesn’t need additional toppings to satisfy.
What’s the best cake pan to use? A 9″ round cast aluminum baking pan, greased well to ensure that the sides of the cake don’t stick to the pan! But even better when it’s baked in an 8″ round pan: it takes about 10 mins longer to bake all through, but each slice really shows off all those apples when it’s taller, instead of wider. A bundt pan? No, it’s too chunked with apples to hold together when made in a bundt pan. You’d never get it out of the pan in one piece!
Preparations: Get 3 mixing bowls ready – 2 large, 1 medium – for apples, batter and drys.
Put out butter. Preheat to 160°C (FF). Grease 8″ or 9″ round cake pan well and set it aside.
Warning: The cake batter is super chunky!
You’ll combine about 2/3 of the butter and egg mixture with the chopped apples, and the batter will be almost impossibly chunky. Just make sure to coat all the apples in as much batter as you can, and resist the urge to use all the batter. You’ll really need to coat the bottom of your prepared baking pan with that remaining 1/3 of the wet mixture.
Ingredients
680g baking apples peeled, cored & diced (Granny Smith with Gala – about 3 large apples – can use from frozen chunks) and you can subs half apple, half firm pears
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
.125 tsp freshly ground nutmeg (optional)
1 Tab freshly squeezed lemon juice
1.125 cups (158 g) plain GF flour blend
.5 tsp xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)
1 tsp BP
.5 tsp kosher salt
140g unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup (200 g) white sugar
2 eggs at room temp, beaten (a chia egg can replace one of these)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (or lemon essence)
aluminum foil
1. In a large bowl toss apples with cinnamon, nutmeg & lemon juice. Set the bowl aside.
In a medium bowl place the flour, xanthan gum, BP & salt: whisk to combine well. Set aside.
2. In another large bowl, with a hand mixer beat butter til light & fluffy (about 2 mins).
Add the sugar, then the eggs & vanilla, beating to combine well after each addition.
Add the drys and beat until just combined. The batter will be thick but smooth and fluffy.
3. Scrape about two-thirds of batter into the apple mixture. Mix to coat all of the apples in the batter. The mixture will be very chunky. Transfer the remaining one-third of batter to the prepared cake pan. Use a moistened, small spatula: spread an even layer in the bottom of the prepared pan.
4. Scrape the apple-packed batter into the pan on top of the base layer of batter, and spread again into an even layer with an offset spatula. If you’ve used an 8-inch pan, it will be quite full.
Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, and place in the centre of oven. Bake for 20 minutes.
5. Remove pan from oven and remove foil covering then return to the oven to bake (about another 40 mins – or 50 mins for 8″ pan) until a toothpick into the centre comes out with no more than a few moist crumbs attached.
6. Remove pan from oven. Allow cake to cool in the pan for 15-20 mins. It will begin to shrink away from the sides of the pan a bit. Run a thin spatula along the edge of the pan to ensure that the sides aren’t sticking before carefully transferring the cake to a wire rack. Allow to cool for about another 15 minutes.
7. Using a very sharp knife, slice and serve the cake, preferably while it’s still warm.
STORAGE:
You can store it at room temperature*, or even in the refrigerator (or freeze for longer storage).
* It will keep on the counter for a full day if it’s well-covered with plastic wrap, and in a sealed container in the fridge for 3 days if you plan to store it for longer than 1 day, or if it’s very warm in your kitchen.
FREEZING:
You can freeze it whole or in slices, so place in a container with a tight-fitting lid. For freezing it whole, you can wrap it all tightly in glad wrap & place on a quarter sheet pan in the freezer until it’s frozen. After that you can remove the sheet pan.
If your cake has been frozen, defrost it at room temperature uncovered, since condensation will gather on the container or plastic wrap as it defrosts, which could make the cake soggy.
