Having a sweet tooth and a bag of apples normally meant lots of baking: apple crumble, apple pie, apple crumble pie, and so on. Now this baking doesn't come so easily if I want to enjoy it. I went on the search for a gluten free apple cake, thinking this would probably be easier than trying to make a gluten-free crust for a pie. Most of the recipes I found called for xantham gum, which I didn't have in my kitchen (and probably won't ever have because of its cost and "synthetic" nature).
I found a recipe that I was able to tweak, and the end result was really quite good - and baked much faster than the recipe called for. While I didn't try it, I believe this could easily be made dairy free as well if you substituted almond milk (or your go to milk) in place of the milk and your own butter substitute (or coconut oil).
The cake is really moist and tasted delicious warm. It was a little crumbly - I'm not sure if that is because of the ingredients or the fact that we ate it warm. It doesn't rise very much, so next time I might consider baking it in a square pan and longer if necessary. I may also add in some more apples to increase the flavour. Overall though, it has a nice taste and definitely satisfied my cake craving. I wouldn't guess it was gluten-free if I hadn't baked it myself.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp chia seeds (or flax seeds or half of each)
1.5 tsp boiling water
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 eggs
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
1.5 cups apples, peeled, cored and shredded (I used 3 small empire apples)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9" round springform pan with butter or coconut oil and dust with rice flour.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg; set aside.
3. In a small bowl combine chia seeds and boiling water to create a gel; set aside.
4. Cream the butter with your mixer until it is softened and pale yellow. (I used about 1 tbsp less butter and added that amount in coconut oil.) Add both the white and brown sugar and beat until well combined.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. Blend in the milk (I used regular milk, but you could use almond or any substitute), vanilla and the chia seed gel, beating well after each one.
6. On low speed, add the dry ingredients in two batches, beating well after each addition until it is well absorbed.
7. Gently fold in the shredded apples.
8. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake 30-35 minutes (the original recipe called for 40-45 mins but my cake was already browning in 30) or until the cake pulls away from the edge of the pan and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
9. Serve warm or cooled. If serving warm, cool in the pan at least 10 minutes before removing.
10. Dust lightly with icing sugar if you like.
