Applesauce Cake (paleo, GF)
My boyfriend and I recently bought tickets to Massachusetts to visit his family and go apple picking. I’ve never gone apple picking, so I’m excited to go and to taste fresh picked apples!
Ever since our tickets were booked, I’ve had apples on the brain. I had the idea to make an “apple sauce” cake and quickly put some ingredients together and put it in the oven.
While this cake was in the oven, I started researching “applesauce cake” and found that this was already a thing. I wasn’t too surprised, this isn’t that original of an idea, but what was even more interesting was that this is an Amish recipe.
Who knew?!
This cake is different than the recipes that I found though.
For one, it’s grainfree/paleo/non-processed.
It’s also different in that I added sliced apples vertically into the batter. This was inspired by a cake recipe that I learned when I was younger.
My aunt taught me a recipe for a cake called “Madame Marshall”, which is a French cake that has apple slices vertically placed into the batter. It is so delicious.
I also searched for this online while this was baking (I did have about an hour to wait while it cooked) and could not find anything about it! Nothing!
Which makes me wonder if Madame Marshall cake is really a known recipe or if it’s just regional or personal recipe. It’s all a mystery! haha
Either way, it is delicious and I wanted to put the apples in a similar fashion for this cake.
Which had an interesting result. It was great having the apple slices compliment the apple batter.
But you need to carefully place them in such a fashion that you can cut slices of cake in between the rows of apples.
Once the cake was sliced, I cut the cake into squares.
This Applesauce Cake is a pleasant fall treat, full of apples, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
I brought some to a labor day party.
A guest at the party tried it and asked what it was, so I explained that it was a paleo applesauce cake.
He asked what this meant and so I went on a whole tangent about there not being any flour or sugar in the recipe and how it is made of all natural, non-processed ingredients.
I think he may have tuned out a little, but once he tasted it, he said, “Wow, if this is Paleo, I’m going Paleo!”
Applesauce Cake (paleo, GF)
Ingredients
- 1 apple
- 2 tsp maple syrup
- 3/4 cup almond flour
- 1/2 cup coconut flour (I use the Nutiva Organic brand)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp + 1/2 tsp cinnamon , divided
- 1/8 tsp + 1/8 tsp nutmeg , divided
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 Tbs vanilla
- 2 Tbs melted coconut oil
- 1 small banana (mashed up)
- 1 cup apple sauce
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Cover a 9.25 X 5.25 X 2.75 loaf tin in wax paper.
- Cut 1 apple into long vertical thin slices and then cut those slices in half horizontally (this is to ensure that the slices aren’t so long that they stick out of the batter), then put the slices into a small bowl. Pour 2 tsp maple syrup on top of the apples. Then put 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/8 tsp of nutmeg on top of the sliced apples and mix everything together with a spoon. Set the bowl aside.
- In bowl 1, mix the almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp nutmeg together with a fork. Set the bowl aside.
- In bowl 2, mix the eggs, honey, vanilla, coconut oil, and mashed banana together with an electric mixer until well mixed. Add the apple sauce and mix with the electric mixer until well blended.
- Put bowl 1 into bowl 2 and mix with an electric mixer.
- Pour the batter into the waxed loaf tin and pat it down evenly with the back of a metal spoon or a spatula.
- Then start vertically inserting the slices of apples into the batter in rows. Make sure to insert the apple slices close together but still leaving some batter in between each slice. Also make sure the rows of apples aren’t too far apart. Once all the apple slices are upright in the batter, bake for 60 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let cool completely.
- Remove the wax paper from the cake and enjoy!
Nutrition
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14 Comments on “Applesauce Cake (paleo, GF)”
Our whole family enjoyed the cake! We omitted the honey and used 1/8 cup of monkfruit sweetener (my husband can’t have sweeteners aside from fruit) and it was great. I think we could even use less sweetener next time, but we are pretty sensitive to sweetness. The texture and flavor were both spot-on. Will definitely be making this one again!
So happy to hear it!! Thanks for letting me know!
Is there something that could be substituted for the banana? (And don’t say that it’s such a small amount you won’t taste it – yes, I would. I am one of those super-tasters. Minute amounts, I can detect and strong flavors like broccoli are intolerable.) Bananas and cantaloupe were something my Mother had to keep in the laundry room if she bought them, and she and my dad would have them when I wasn’t around. Even the smell of a banana will give me dry heaves.
Hmmm, I have not tried to replace banana here so I’m not totally sure what would work best. I have a hunch that pumpkin puree would work. I recommend trying these Paleo Apple Crumb Muffins on my site. They are fantastic and no banana!
This recipe was really good! I was out of almond flour, so I ground up flax seeds as a replacement, and it worked really well! I’ve done this a couple of times recently — one to one replacement, and it worked great each occasion!
Great to know that this works with ground flaxseeds too!
Can I use all almond flour and omit the coconut flour? (I don’t have any). This recipe sounds yummy!
You’d have to use extra almond flour. Coconut flour is way more absorbent that almond flour, so you’ll need about 3/4-1 cup almond flour to replace the 1/4 cup coconut flour. I’m not sure how it would change the recipe as a whole, but if you try it let me know!
This was soooo good. It’s a great dessert that even people who don’t eat paleo can enjoy. It tastes like real, guilty-pleasure cake. I used maple syrup instead of honey and it enhanced it with maple flavor. I saw that someone said 1/2 a cup of honey made it too sweet, so I added 1/4 a cup of maple syrup and tasted it. I ended up using a little over 1/4 a cup and it was perfect.
I’m thrilled to hear it! I love this cake and it’s great to hear that a little over 1/4 cup of maple syrup works well 🙂
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This was good and very moist but much too sweet. I would halve the honey next time. Thanks for the recipe!
Madame Constance Marshall was an old acquaintance ( friend and neighbor ) of your maternal grandmother…
She was a young married woman when the Great War started and had to feed and take care of her family while her husband was in the army… ( for the 4 years of that terrible war / WW1 ). She did everything she could to find food and store it, knowing that the winters will be terrible. One of the year she stored so many apples for the times to come that she invented many recipes. This is one of the best one, it was always her signature cake… Thank you Dominique I remember the smile on her face…