A rustic vegan apple cake with crunchy demerara topping, studded with juicy sultanas and big chunks of apple. The perfect vegan teatime treat.
Here's another vegan baking experiment which turned out really well - a rustic, vegan apple cake, with crunchy demerera topping and a super-moist apple & sultana cake underneath. This won't win many points in the cake beauty contest, but more than makes up for it with its lovely combination of textures, and great big slabs of apple and soggy sultanas tucked inside.
The consistency of the cake is moist and I keep the apple chunks really quite big, exactly how I like my apple cake. Its a world away from the light, airy sponge in the Ultimate Vegan Victoria Sponge I posted back in January, but just as good with a nice cup of tea.
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📝 What you need
Ingredients
- Dairy-free margarine
- Dairy-free yoghurt
- Dairy-free milk
- Lemon
- Apples
- Soft brown sugar
- Demerera sugar
- Ground cinnamon
- Rolled oats
- Self-raising flour
- Baking powder
- Sultanas
Equipment
A good sturdy cake tin is a good investment and makes the process of extracting the finished cake from the tin a lot less stressful! For this recipe you need a fairly deep tin, and either a loose-bottomed or springform cake tin will make an easy job of it. Mine is this Mary Berry 20cm loose-base tin which I love.
You can absolutely make this cake 'by hand' with just a large bowl and a good spatula, and a lot of elbow grease! But some sort of electric intervention does help to get a really excellent cake texture.
A good hand whisk like this one from Morphy Richards *at under £13 will definitely do the job, and will be useful for so many other vegan baking recipes too.
But a good food mixer, although quite a big investment, really does make a huge difference for very light and fluffy cakes, buttercreams, and also kneading bread or pizza dough, whisking plant cream or aquafaba, and anything else that needs a lot of power. I have this KMix by Kenwood* which is £289 and worth every penny – I’ve had it for over 10 years now and it is really good quality.
👩🏽🍳 Apple Cake Variations
There are a number of ways you could tweak this apple cake recipe if you want a bit of variation. How about:
- Add some nuts Roughly chopped walnuts or hazelnuts would add a lovely additional crunch to the cake - about 50g or so would be ideal.
- Use pears instead Pears would be a delicious alternative to apples, but use just-ripe ones, not super-soft or they will just collapse in cooking.
- Add ground almonds for an extra-specially moist cake - 50g added in with the flour will add a richness and moistness to the finished cake.
- Vary the dried fruit How about trying dried cranberries or chopped dates in place of the sultanas?
❄️ Freezing
This moist cake freezes beautifully so is perfect for making in advance of a special occasion, or slicing before freezing to enjoy one slice at a time.
Just make sure it is well wrapped to be completely airtight, and leave plenty of time for defrosting - those huge juicy chunks of apple need to be absolutely at room temperature to be at their very best.
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Apple Cake with sultanas
Ingredients
- 150 g dairy-free margarine
- 225 g soft brown sugar
- 150 g unsweetened dairy-free yoghurt (I used plain soya yoghurt)
- 150 ml unsweetened dairy-free milk (I used soya milk)
- 300 g self-raising flour
- 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
- zest of 1 lemon
- 35 g rolled oats
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 90 g sultanas
- 3 small-medium eating apples, peeled and diced
- 40 g demerara sugar
Instructions
- Line a 20cm cake tin with greaseproof paper or baking parchment, Preheat the oven to 175°C (fan) / 350°F / Gas Mark 4.
- In a food mixer or large bowl, whisk together the margarine and soft brown sugar for 2-3 minutes, until fairly pale and fluffy.
- In a small jug or bowl, combine the vegan yoghurt and milk, cinnamon and lemon zest.
- Peel and core two of the apples, and cut them into chunks. Core the third apple (but don't peel) and cut it into thin slices.
- Tip the milk and yoghurt mix into the cake mix, then sieve the flour and baking powder into the mixture. Mix gently until just combined
- Fold through the oats, apple chunks (leave the slices for later) and sultanas.
- Tip the mixture into your baking tin and smooth out the top.
- Arrange the apple slices on top of the cake mix in whatever pattern you choose.
- Sprinkle with the demerera sugar, then bake for 60-80 minutes until a skewer comes out completely clean, (NB a slightly larger tin = shallower cake, so it will cook more quickly). If the apple slices on top seem to be browning too quickly, cover the cake with foil for the remaining cooking time.
- Leave to cool in the tin, then lift out and slice.
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION
Video
Nutrition
Recipe loosely based on Apple Cake from Pret A Manger's 'Food on the Move', tweaks and vegan-isation my own!
I can't believe how good this cake is - it looks stunning anyway and is just a fabulous dish to make at home!
Will make this again! So delicious and tasty! Thanks a lot for sharing! Job well done!
I love apple cake and I really appreciate how you created this vegan version for apple cake. Thank you for a wonderful recipe.
perfect recipe and its super easy instructions thanks! cant wait to mark this today!
Absolutely yummy! I am a huge fan of apple cakes, and this is exactly what I needed to make. Thank you for the recipe.
Great recipe thank you!
I got a bit worried when the soya yoghurt started to curdle in the margarine and sugar mix, but once I’d put the flour in everything came good.
I grated the apples rather than chopped them, and baked the mixture in muffin tins.
Came out beautifully.
Here in Boston, May is feeling more like November and has its residents cuddled up in chunky knits and thick socks. Aka the perfect weather to enjoy your Oaty Apple Traybake and a cup of tea, which is exactly what the hubs and I did yesterday (accompanied by a roaring fire and House of Cards marathon). It was moist and delicious!!!!!!! Forget soggy, moist all the way baby. Thanks for the great recipe!
Oh you've made my day Charlotte - so glad you liked it, Apple Traybake is one of my favourite cakes ever, and this one turned out really well, particularly the crunchy topping. The weather is pretty miserable here too today, and you've made me want a slice now, might just have to whip up another one!
I still have a few apples left in the freezer from last autumn and with the unseasonally winter like weather this sounds just perfect to use them up and bring a little comfort eating to the cottage this weekend.
What a great idea to use oats! I am loving any kind of apple dessert at the moment, it's just so comforting.
Just yummy, love apple in cakes as it makes them so moist and delicious:-)
That looks absolutely wonderful Kate. I'd be wanting to serve it warm with some dairy free custard. Yum! Mind you who could resist just picking up a slice and getting stuck in?