Sticky Toffee Pudding.... good. Toffee apples.... good. Mix them together and what do you get? You guessed it - this Sticky Toffee Apple Cake is just too scrummy. It is such a 'November' cake: warm and sticky, dark and treacle-y, with cinnamon and cloves, huge chunks of apple and chopped walnuts.
I made two of these over the weekend, one for our little fireworks party and the other for Sunday afternoon choir practice, (which always involves tea and cake - yum!). They both went down a treat, (with a pleasing number of "are you sure its vegan?!" comments - I'm sure people still think we eat nothing but salad!), so I thought you might like the recipe too.
This quick microwave toffee sauce is such a handy recipe - I first experimented with it for the 15-minute Bannoffee Cheesecake Pots in my book Vegan in 15* and it just turned out so well I use it a lot - as a quick sauce for dairy-free ice cream, or to serve with a Sunday apple crumble - yum!
You can either serve the cake hot as a dessert, with a jug of the leftover toffee sauce and perhaps a scoop of vegan ice cream, or cold with a cup of tea and a sit down.
My 4-year-old collected these autumn leaves and pressed them flat in the back of a heavy book - what beautiful colours!
Sticky Toffee Apple Cake
Ingredients
For the Toffee Sauce:
- 65 g light brown sugar
- 100 ml soya cream
- 65 g dairy-free margarine
For the Cake:
- 125 g chopped dates
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 150 ml apple juice
- 100 g dairy-free margarine
- 80 g caster sugar
- 80 g dark brown sugar
- 100 g soya yoghurt
- 100 ml soya milk
- 200 g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch ground cloves
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 75 g walnuts
- 4 eating apples
Instructions
For the Toffee Sauce:
- Place all the ingredients for the toffee sauce into a microwave-safe jug or bowl, (a fairly large one as the sauce will bubble up as it cooks), and microwave it on full power for 1 minute 30 seconds. Stir it and return to the microwave for a further 1 minute 30 seconds then set aside to cool.
For the Cake:
- Place the dates, bicarbonate of soda and apple juice in a saucepan, bring to the boil then simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes. When the dates are soft, mash with a fork or blitz with a hand blender until fairly smooth.
- Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas Mark 4. Line the base of a 22cm cake tin with baking parchment, then pour a thin layer of toffee sauce over the base. Place the tin in the freezer (or fridge if you don't have space!) until needed.
- Beat together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, then stir in the soya yoghurt and milk.
- Peel and core the apples. Cut two of the apples in half, then slice them finely and arrange the slices over the toffee sauce in the base of the cake tin, overlapping each slice to make a pretty pattern. Cut the remaining two apples into large chunks.
- Sieve the flour, baking powder, ground cloves and cinnamon into the mixture and fold in slowly until combined. Roughly chop the walnuts and stir through the mixture along with the apple chunks and mashed dates.
- Pour the cake mix into the tin carefully, (keeping the apple pattern in tact as much as possible!), then smooth it flat. Cover a baking tray with foil and put your cake tin on the tray (to catch any sticky toffee drips), and place in the oven. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a knife comes out clean, covering the top of the cake with foil if it looks like it might be getting too brown on top towards the end of cooking time.
- Leave to cool in the tin for 2-3 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack, and carefully peel off the baking parchment to reveal the apple pattern. When it is completely cool, drizzle over some of the remaining toffee sauce. Serve the rest of the sauce in a jug alongside the cake.
wow this turned out to be super delicious. The taste was perfect, the shape and smell was mouth watering. Thanks for sharing
Oh that's fantastic to hear, thanks for letting me know! X
What a great combination of flavours - the idea of serving it with extra toffee sauce sounds so tempting 🙂 #CookBlogShare
Angela x
Looks delightful! Comfort food, indeed! I'm new to your blog and loving it. Mind if I link you!?
What a perfect recipe for this time of the year. Also great to have a lovely vegan cake to be able to bake for any vegan teens or friends.
I love spicy apple cakes and this sounds perfect! I would definitely like to try it as I've just finished eating the last apple cake I made.
Wow, this looks epic! As long as I can eat it cold (I have an aversion to warm sponge - yeah I know!), always looking for vegan cake recipes. Pinned for later!
Wow - I LOVE a dessert mashup and this is a particularly fine example!! Loving the sound of that toffee sauce...though actually not quite as much as the idea of a cup of tea and a sit down - can't remember the last time I got one of those!! If I make this cake, will I get one?!? Thanks for linking it up to #CookBlogShare 🙂 Eb x
This looks so dense and sticky!! Love it - more toffee sauce please 😀