Gluten Free Apple Cake -

5 from 2 votes

Gluten Free Apple Cake

A homey and simple gluten free apple cake that makes great use of seasonal apples.

Prep Time15

Cook Time1 30

Total Time1 45

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Diet: Gluten Free

Servings: servings

Calories: 483kcal

Grease a tube pan and preheat the oven to 350℉
Place the 4 large eggs in a large bowl, and whisk well to beat them. Then whisk in the 2 ½ cups granulated sugar, reserving ½ cup of sugar, 1 cup vegetable oil, ⅓ cup orange juice, 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, 3 ½ cups gluten free flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon fine sea salt and reserving ½ cup of the sugar, in the order in which they are written. Let it sit while you peel and cut up the apples. Mix the 2 large apples with 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon and remaining ½ cup of sugar.
Add half of the batter to the tube pan, sprinkle it with half of the cinnamon apples, then top with the remaining batter and spread the remaining cinnamon apples across the top. Rest the batter for another 10 minutes to hydrate the flour.
Place in the oven and bake for 1 ¼– 1 ½ hours, until a tester inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then turn gently out onto a rack to cool completely.

CN's cake tips:

- What type of apple to use? My answer: Any type of apple! While a firmer "baking apple" such as a Granny Smith or Jonagold will hold its shape better during baking, in my experience, any type of apple you have will do. You can also do a combination of different varieties of apples. Or, make my gluten free pear cake!
- Place cake on a baking sheet. When using a tube pan, batter can sometimes leak out the bottom. To prevent spilling and burning on the floor of the oven, place the pan on a baking sheet to catch any extra batter.

- Prepare batter in order of ingredients. The reason this recipe works so beautifully as a one-bowl method is that the batter is prepped following the order in the ingredient list. For example, add the eggs to the bowl first, whisk them, then proceed with adding the remaining ingredients.

- Try brown sugar. For a lovely hint of caramel complement to the apples, use light brown sugar instead of the granulated sugar to mix with the apples (you'll swap ½ cup of the granulated sugar for brown sugar when you mix up the apple pieces).

- Use butter. While I dearly appreciate that this cake is dairy-free, if you're yearning for a super-rich, buttery undertone, use 1 cup butter instead of the oil. If you go this route, cream the butter and sugar first before adding the rest of the ingredients.

- Add almonds. I love scattering sliced almonds over the top of the cake before baking for a bit of nutty crunch.

- Other spices. Instead of cinnamon, try ground ginger or a spice mix such as apple pie spice mix or even pumpkin spice mix later in the fall.

- To serve: A dusting of powdered sugar, a little whipped cream, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream, though my preference is to enjoy this cake plain.