Everyone needs a great ‘Nana’ cake in their baking portfolio and this is mine. It ticks all the boxes: simple, nostalgic, deliciously light and fluffy and something every Nana would enjoy with a warm cup of Earl Grey tea. My gluten free Apple Cinnamon Teacake features two delicious layers of apple slices. The first layer forms a glistening golden top crust of caramelised apple and the second layer sits in the centre for incredible moistness and flavour.
Before you start making the batter grease your cake tin very generously with butter and sprinkle with demerara sugar to caramelise the apple slices for a gleaming, jammy top layer. I have used granny smith apples in this recipe (my “go to” apple for baking) because I love their intense sweet/tart flavour in buttery cakes and pies. Feel free to replace granny smiths with pink lady, golden delicious, fuji or honey gold apples or a combination of these for a more complex flavour. They all work beautifully, they just have different sweet, tart and tannic notes.
Your cake batter will appear thick but don’t be concerned as it rises beautifully and magically transforms into a light, fluffy sponge. This really is a no fuss, easy recipe that only requires a few basic pantry staples. No wonder Nana’s have been baking teacake for years. Go on, make her proud!
- 4 - 5 granny smith apples, sliced thinly
- 300g unsalted butter, softened
- 300g or 1⅓ cups caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 eggs
- 300g or 2⅓ cups plain gluten free flour*
- 1 tbs baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Pinch of grated nutmeg
- Demerara sugar for sprinkling
- * I use Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 plain baking flour
- Preheat oven to 180c.
- Generously grease a 20cm square or round cake tin with butter and sprinkle pan with demerara sugar. Arrange half the apple slices on base of tin.
- Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy in a mixer. Add eggs one at a time with mixer running.
- Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix until just combined.
- Spread half the batter into the tin and top with the remaining apple slices. Cover the apples with the remaining cake batter.
- Bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
- Dust top of cake with cinnamon.
- Preheat oven to 180c.
- Generously grease a 20cm square or round cake tin with butter and sprinkle pan with demerara sugar. Arrange half the apple slices on base of tin.
- Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in Thermomix 30 sec/speed 5. Add eggs one at a time with mixer running on speed 3.
- Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix 30 sec/speed 6 scraping down sides of bowl halfway.
- Spread half the batter into the tin and top with the remaining apple slices. Cover the apples with the remaining cake batter.
- Bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
- Dust top of cake with cinnamon.
I made this cake and it was absolutely delicious! The kids gobbled it up and even the non coeliac, (normally highly wary of gluten free food) thought it was great. Think I’ll have to invest in a better quality bundt tin though, lots of the Apple stuck inside the pan when I turned it out. Nothing that a generous sprinkle of icing sugar couldn’t hide! Thanks for the recipe! I’m wondering if I could incorporate some creme d’amande into this cake?
Hi Karen,
Thanks for your feedback. My tin is from Williams Sonoma and it is great, does not stick and beautifully shaped. I find all their tins are very good quality and durable. I have never incorporated the cream you mentioned but I can’t see why it would not work. Give it a go and let me know. Take care.
HI Helen. Well, I got my expensive Nordicware super-heavy cake tin for Christmas, its exactly the beautiful shape that your cake tin is for this recipe and let me tell you, I was VERY excited to try the apple cake recipe again in a gorgeous expensive tin. (thinking the cake would just fall out of the tin and instantly look exactly like the one in your photo!). Alas, it stuck so badly It ended up looking like a big pile of very yummy crumbs :(. I followed your instructions to the letter so – is there anything else I can do to make my cake turn out like yours?
I used my very inexpensive cake tin and it turned out perfectly! Maybe it’s the amount of butter you used? I was very generous with both butter and sugar before the apple layer.
So glad to hear that Linda. If you line the cake tin with baking paper this is a foolproof way of ensuring the cake won’t stick, even if the tin is old. Enjoy.