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
- Optional: Apricot jam to brush
- * 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 50-55 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes and then flip cake onto a cooling rack so apple slices are on top.
- For a glossy top you have the option of brushing the cake with apricot jam. 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 50-55 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes and then flip cake onto a cooling rack so apple slices are on top.
- For a glossy top you have the option of brushing the cake with apricot jam. 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.
This was such an amazing yummy tea cake!! I changed it up a little though because I ran out of a few bits and pieces… I used half flour and half almond meal which made it really fluffy and also I only had coconut sugar so I used that and it was also very yummy a very strong taste and a dark cake but all in all it was delicious super happy I found this recipe!
Thank you Grace I am so glad you enjoyed it. Your creative changes all sound delicious!
Thank you for another delicious recipe. We have bought a house with a crab apple tree and they worked surprising well in this recipe, so now I know what to do them all! Enjoyed by all.
Crab Apple tree, yum! So glad you loved my Apple Cinnamon Teacake recipe Hannah. It’s usually a crowd pleaser because it is so light. Happy New Year!
Made this the other day and must be a hit with the family because every time I open the fridge there always seems to be one piece less! Very moist and stays so, even though I used Well & Good GF flour and not Bob’s. Found the batter was rather thick so carefully added a little milk a teaspoon at a time until I was able to spread without picking up all the apples and distributing through other parts of the cake!
The Apple Cinnamon Teacake recipe is delicious and generally a crowd pleaser because it is light and not overly sweet. You are correct the batter is quite thick like a traditional pound cake but it will still bake perfectly.
I tried this last night, but I used 160g Csr Smart sugar/stevia blend. It turned out beautifully, and no-one would pick the difference! Delicious moist cake 😋. I also slit some rhubarb stalks and interleaved some pieces between the apple. I think lining the tin with paper makes it a breeze to turn out.
Wonderful Miri. They sound like great substitutions for the Apple Cinnamon Teacake. The fruit can be easily swapped out with other varieties, the recipe is quite flexible like that. Rhubarb always works well. Enjoy!
Another brilliant result! I also used a little milk to make the batter easier to spread over the apple slices, without messing them all up. Didn’t have quite the amount of butter needed and it still turned out beautifully but I did very generously grease the pan as that really makes it easy to turn out and makes the apple topping “shine”.
Helen, I am loving your recipes. I had given up baking when I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease as none of my old favourite recipes converted well to using gluten-free flours. But I am back in the kitchen now and the whole family of non-coeliacs love the results too. Next I am going to try your Hummingbird cake.
Fantastic Ann! So glad you loved the Apple Cinnamon Teacake recipe. The Hummingbird Cake is super moist and yummy, good choice.
What a great cake! I have been GF for around 7 years now, and the other day my husband baked himself a regular ‘gluten’ tea cake…and I was a bit jealous! I made this gluten free version, and I absolutely love it! I only used 110g rapadura sugar and 250g butter (to try balance the reduced sugar) – and it worked out wonderfully (I prefer things a lot less sweet these days). I assumed a regular convection oven rather than fan forced, which worked perfectly. Such a great texture, nice crumb, crunchy/crispy outer and the softly cooked apples really make it special. Takes me back to my childhood memories!
Fantastic Laura. I’m so glad you loved my Gluten Free Apple Cinnamon Teacake recipe. Enjoy!! Helen.
The best gluten free cake I have ever made. It cooked just as you described in a square tin well buttered. It was crisp on the outside and moist and rich inside. I glazed with apricot jam which I think added a kick to the cake.
Kate the gluten free Apple Cinnamon Cake is very popular, one of my favourite Nana cakes. So glad you loved it.