There are three big apples packed in this apple bread! Loaded with warm cinnamon flavours, you’ll love how moist it is without being too sweet. This is a quick bread recipe which means, true to its name, it’s a yeast-free loaf. Fabulous for morning tea or a breakfast treat with a cup of coffee!
Cinnamon Apple Bread
I’ve been working on my Apple Pie Project (read: my perfect apple pie) and am convinced that this is the year we will crack it! But either way making apple pie is definitely a labour of love, so meanwhile I also want to share other sweet ways with apples that are faster and easier. Some favourites from my existing apple repertoire are Apple Muffins, Apple Bars, and Apple Crumble.
So here’s a big welcome to the latest addition to my apple recipe collection: today’s Cinnamon Apple Bread!
This is a good bread for sharing that’s relatively fast to make. Leftovers make a great breakfast, lightly toasted and smothered in (just a bit!) of butter.
What you need
Here’s what you need to make this Cinnamon Apple Bread. There is no missing the cinnamon in this recipe! It’s in the batter, on the apple, and on the surface!
1. The Apple
Apples – You will need 3 big apples for this recipe! 650g / 1.4 pounds in total. I like to use Granny Smith because I love the tartness and also because they hold their shape better when cooked. However, any apple will work for this recipe, though you may need to watch how quickly the slices on the surface caramelise.
You will need 2 of the apples chopped up to mix into the batter, and 1 apple cut into slices for decorating the surface. Though actually, the decorative topping is purely optional.
Cinnamon and sugar (for apple in the batter) – I like to toss the chopped up apples in a little sugar and cinnamon to get a little sweetness and flavour into the apple pieces before folding into the batter.
Demerara sugar and cinnamon (for topping) – Demerara sugar is a coarse sugar with a hint of molasses flavour that is ideal to use for sprinkling onto things to create a sparkly little crust. Turbinado makes a perfect substitute. However, if you don’t have either there is no need to get it especially. Just use brown sugar instead.
Walnuts – Entirely optional! The add a lovely soft crunch to the loaf. To be honest, I’ve made this without walnuts more often than with.
2. The Batter
Cinnamon, ginger and allspice powder – I’ve called this a Cinnamon Apple Bread because it’s the dominant spice here. But I like to add interest to the cinnamon flavour with a touch of ginger and allspice (mixed spice also works great). However, the ginger and allspice are entirely optional. You can skip them and just add more cinnamon powder.
Yogurt or sour cream – A secret weapon to make cakes and breads that are beautifully moist. Yogurt adds wetness to batters without also making it thin (unlike milk), which means you don’t need as much flour. Less flour = more moist! This also (usually) means the batter doesn’t call for “cream butter and sugar with a beater” which means (a) no waiting for butter to soften; and (b) it’s hand mixed with just a wooden spoon.
Yogurt is not suitable to use for all cakes (like my classic Vanilla Cake, Chocolate Cake) but I do use it quite regularly in baked goods – like Yogurt Lemon Cake, Easy Blueberry Cake, Strawberry Cake and Chocolate Muffins, to name a few. Even for my Cheesy Mediterranean Muffins (great non-sweet morning tea option!).
Baking powder and baking soda (bicarbonate soda) – I like to use a combination of baking powder and baking soda because while they both make baked goods rise, they behave differently. For one thing, baking soda is about 3x stronger than baking powder and for loafs such as this, it makes the surface dome more. By using a combination of the two you can control the shape of baked goods. For this apple cake, I specifically wanted just the slightest dome to keep the apple slice decoration mostly in place (big dome = apple slices splayed out in a disorderly way!).
However, the nice thing about this loaf is that the batter is very forgiving so you can use just baking soda or just baking powder. The shape of the surface will be slightly different (baking powder = level or slightly sunken, baking soda only = rounder dome), but the crumb is basically the same. I’ve popped directions in the recipe notes.
Flour – Just plain / all-purpose flour. Self-raising flour (instead of flour + baking powder + baking soda) will work but it doesn’t rise quite as well. Gluten-free – I haven’t tried!
Eggs – Preferably at room temperature so it incorporates more easily into the batter but for this batter, it’s actually not a problem if they are fridge-cold because as noted above, it’s a very forgiving recipe!
Oil – Another secret to making cakes with a moist crumb. Butter has better flavour but it dries cakes out. Why then, don’t I only use oil in cakes? Because oil is flavourless. It really only works in cakes where there’s other big flavours to compensate – like cinnamon, in this case.
Brown sugar – Not very much actually! Just 3/4 cup. I really like that this loaf is not too sweet.
Vanilla extract – For a complementary rather than dominant flavour. I really feel it’s missing something without vanilla .
Salt – Just a pinch brings out other flavours in sweet baked goods. It definitely does not make it taste salty at all. This is generally good practice for baking, a tip I’ve picked up over the years. You’ll notice my older cake recipes do not have salt in them.
How to make Cinnamon Apple Loaf
It’s very, very straight forward. It takes longer to chop the apples than to make the batter!
1. The Batter
Toss the apple pieces with cinnamon and sugar, and set aside while you make the batter. This will make the apple sweat slightly – we mix the juices into the batter – and infuse the apple with a bit of sweetness and cinnamon flavour.
Dry – Whisk the Dry ingredients in a bowl.
Wet – Whisk the Wet ingredients in a separate bowl. (PS. I know sugar isn’t “wet” but in the baking world it is considered a wet ingredient and actually it behaves like a wet ingredient when mixed with liquids).
Combine wet and dry – Pour the Wet ingredients into the Dry ingredients bowl then mix until combined.
Stir through the apple (including all juices in the bowl) and walnuts, if using.
Scrape the batter into a prepared loaf pan and level the surface.
Lining the loaf pan – I just use a single sheet of paper to line the base and long sides, with plenty of paper overhang. There’s no need to line the short end – this cake is not that sticky. Also the overhang will be used to lift the cake out because we do not want to turn it out upside down as it will mess up the top.)
Batter level – The batter should be around 1.7cm / 2/3″ below the rim of the loaf pan. No more else it may overflow.
Apple slices – Decorate the surface using the apple slices in any way you wish. I fan them out slightly, as pictured, and use 3/4 of an apple.
Sprinkle the surface with the Demerara sugar mixed with (more!) cinnamon powder.
2. Baking
This loaf takes 1 hour 25 minutes to bake: Partially uncovered, to caramelise the surface nicely, then covered to finish cooking it through.
1 hour uncovered – Bake the loaf uncovered for 1 hour at 200°C / 390°F (180°C fan). This is slightly higher than the usual 180°C/350°F (160°C fan). This lower temperature not only took an extra 20 minutes to cook but the loaf didn’t rise as well. 200°C for the win!
FIRST CHECK at 45 minutes to ensure the apple slices are not burning. If they are, cover with foil early.
25 minutes covered – Remove the loaf from the oven and loosely cover with foil. Then bake for a further 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Cool 1 hour – Cool for 15 minutes in the pan. Then use the paper overhang to lift the loaf out on to a rack to cool for a further 1 hour before slicing. I know it’s super-tempting but don’t slice and eat it straight away because even though it is fully cooked, it will paradoxically taste a little raw. You really need to rest any baked good (breads included) to let the inside finish cooking and “dry out” a bit. The larger it is, the longer you need to rest it. In this case, because of the extra moisture from the apple, it needs a good 1 hour. At the very least, 30 minutes!
Cutting and serving
It will not shock regular readers to hear that I even have a view on something as simple as slicing a loaf!! 😂
For me, the perfect width of a slice is between 2 – 2.2 cm (that’s 0.78 – 0.87 inches).
Thicker = cake-to-butter ratio is out.
Thinner = stingy plus too fragile. If it breaks when slices fall like dominos as you cut the loaf up, it means the slices are too thin.
Please don’t judge me! Or – do. I don’t mind. Because I’ll be the one eating the perfect slice of Apple Bread!
Eat it slightly warm and plain, like cake. Or lightly toast it in the oven or in your toaster then slather with butter. Leftovers will keep for days and days (around 5) and freezes perfectly. So even if it’s just you, there’s no excuse not to make this! 🙂 – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Cinnamon Apple Bread
Ingredients
Topping (optional):
- 1 Granny Smith apple , quartered, cored, thinly sliced 3 mm / 1/8" thick (Note 1)
- 1 1/2 tbsp demerara sugar (or turbinado sugar, Note 2)
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
Cinnamon Apple:
- 3 cups diced Granny Smith apple , 1/2” cubes, skin on (approx 2 large apples) (Note 2)
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 3 tbsp brown sugar
Batter – Dry:
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1/2 tsp ginger powder (Note 3)
- 1/4 tsp allspice (or mixed spice) (Note 3)
- 1 3/4 cups plain / all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda , sifted (Note 4)
- 1/4 tsp cooking / kosher salt
Batter – Wet:
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup yogurt , plain unsweetened (sub sour cream), at room temperature (Note 5)
- 2 eggs , at room temperature (Note 5)
- 1/2 cup canola oil (or other neutral flavoured oil)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Walnuts (optional):
- 1 cup walnuts , toasted, roughly chopped into 1cm/1/3″ pieces (not too small) (Note 6)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C/390°F (180°C fan). Position shelf in the middle of the oven.
- Loaf pan (Note 7): Use a 21.5 x 11.5 x 7 cm / 4.5 x 8.5 x 2.75" pan. Spray with canola oil then line the long side + base with a single piece of paper leaving some overhang (don’t worry about lining short sides).
- Topping: Mix the Demerara sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Cinnamon Apple: Mix Cinnamon Apple ingredients in a bowl. Set aside while you prepare the batter (the sugar will make the apple sweat = good thing!).
- Batter: Whisk the Dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk Wet ingredients. Pour Wet mix into the Dry bowl, whisk just until smooth. Stir in apples (including all juices) and walnuts. Batter should be thick but dollop-able (not pourable in thin stream, nor thick like sticky bread dough). Scrape into loaf pan, smooth surface.
- Topping: Take 1/4 of the apple slices, fan out (so they're overlapping) then arrange on top. Repeat in two more lots of 1/4 of an apple. (I find to cover the surface, I only use 3/4 of the apple.) Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.
- Bake 60 minutes. Cover loosely with foil, bake for further 25 minutes or until skewer inserted into the centre comes out smooth.
- Rest 15 minutes in the pan then use paper overhang to remove to a rack. Cool at least 1 hour on rack before slicing!
- Serving – The bread is moist and flavoured enough to eat plain though nobody complains if it's lightly toasted and slathered with butter!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Love baking with apples?
Me too! See?
Life of Dozer
Oh my, oh my, Life of Dozer – or is that Dozer’s life? – is rather exciting these days as he accompanies me on the Sydney leg of the cookbook tour! Here he is at our very first public event hosted by Kinokuniya book store. It took place in a church in the city that is often hired out for events. As I was talking on stage, he just wandered around the room, sidling up to people for pats and cuddles. He was in his element!!!
And for those wondering, I am very pleased to report that he did not pee during the event!!!! 🙌🏻
Another huge thank you to everyone who came. It was so wonderful to see your faces and get to meet so many of you!! 😊
Ooh Nagi, you’re *this* close to giving us a banana bread recipe! Maybe while you’re book touring, a member of your team could take over your kitchen and come up with the ultimate banana bread recipe. I mean, can you even call yourself a food blogger/cookbook author extraordinaire if you don’t have at least one banana bread recipe on the site? 😉🍌Love your work!!
I made this with bananas…just mashed three medium overripe bananas and added them to the wet mix, I omitted the apples, and pooped one sliced banana on top for decoration and it was delicious!
Nagi has said before she hates bananas and will refuse to make a recipe with them🤣
You added BANANA to my recipe??? 😭😭😭 😂
Yes I just pooped it on 🤣🤣🤣
I can Confirm…it was delicious!
Hahahhahahaha…..popped NOT pooped
BA HA HA!!! N x
🤣 It really is a wondrous image, but not likely to help Nagi’s aversion to bananas!🤣🍌
Thanks for the tips on using this recipe to make banana bread 🙂
I am going to try this with gf flour. I will let u know how it goes. Also what oil do u use for the Apple cake please?
Hey Janet, just wondering how the GF option went with this bread?
I am coeliac & in interested in trying with gluten free flour. Did it work?
Absolutely delicious. Moist, cinnamon-y, fabulous. Straight to the favourites list.
This is delicious. I would like to bake smaller loaves for gifts. Can you suggest adjustments that would help me?
Dear Nagi and Dozer,
So many congratulations for U. And I really hope that your book becomes available in the Netherlands.
This cake or bread was a hit again !!! I put some sugernibs in its was a sugerbread combi ;)) A fusion between Australia and The Netherlands ❤️
Thank you so much for your lovely message Caroline! My UK publisher is working hard on getting the book into other countries across Europe. Hoping to hear something soon! N xx
Hi Nagi. Can’t wait for the book to come to Europe. Do you have Irish Blood by any chance? Love the “Dollopability” bit, very Irish 🙂
This looks delicious but I have to highlight the sugar amount is ridiculously high nearly 30% of the cake is sugar. Sugar is a carcinogenic and causes cancer I ask that you try to find ways of using alternatives or swapping out ingredients for example in this recipe you could have used a sweeter apple variety and less sugar if you prefer a sweeter cake. You could get away with reducing the sugar to half a cup this would bring serving size down to 20gms. As a survivor of cancer that is now being related to sugar intake I now speak up when I see the overuse of sugar. I still think this overall recipe is delicious just requires a little more tweaking for health as well. 😎
I made this with half the sugar, tasted amazing, also less baking time, just over 1 hr total worked in my oven. As a bowel cancer survivor myself, I think so much more about what I now eat and drink also.
Hi Nagi! Congratulations to you and Dozer! I’m going to make
this for sure, and I’m wondering if I can use half whole wheat flour. And if there is an adjustment to make. Thank you, Nagi. Your recipes are wonderful and so easy to follow.
Thank you Gail! Whole-wheat should work fine but I’d add a tablespoon or two of milk or yogurt to loosen the batter a bit as I find whole-wheat is more absorbent. It will add great flavour though! N x
Yum!! All my favourite things , apples, cinnamon and a nice loaf 🤓 Will defo bake. Im sure 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
It is apple season here in BC, Canada.
Thanks Nagi.
Hugs to Dozer. Good boy for not peeing at the event 📚🐾😍
Take care. You work so hard.
You can’t imagine how much thought goes into timing Dozers event appearances around his peeing schedule!! Right now I’m wandering around outside a mall trying to convince him to pee before we head inside to do signings for a few hours. He is not co operating! 🤯
You could do the toilet training trick of strategically giving him a drink at a certain time if you know how long it will take for that drink to get to the other end…
PS: finally got your book!! It’s so good, I can’t wait to try your recipes every week, and I’m so happy to see some of our family favourites in it! My husband said a lot of the recipes look really good, and my kids can’t have enough of Dozer 😁
Aww thank you AE!!! PS OMG putting a timing on his toilet going habits – BA HA HA!!!!
Such a good pup!
Aww, Dozer 🙂
This just goes to show that having your first book signing in a Church that you & Dozer are blessed! Can’t wait to try the Apple cinnamon bread. It looks delicious!
Aww I love that thought! ❤️
This recipe sounds so delicious. My question is can I cut the sugar down. Want to make it for a diabetic and the sugar content is a little on the high side. Maybe sub one sweeter apple.
Cannot thank you enough for the explanations on how/why certain ingredients work (or don’t). It gives me understanding so I can tweak things myself if need be – you’re just the best!!
This recipe looks delicious and I intend to try it out in the next few days. Have you ever tried to add a bit of cardamom to the spice mix? It seems to blend the other flavours while you don’t really taste it. I’m up in Canada waiting impatiently for your new cookbook to arrive. Hugs to Dozer.
This looks wonderful and timely as my foody pals were just discussing nuts in quick-breads. Was not a fan of adding them but I have had great success finely chopping (walnuts/pecans) and toasting them in the oven at 350 for 6 to 12 minutes depending on the nut & oven. The flavor went POW! But not overwhelming. Downloading this recipe right now.
Just made this…. Bit ordinary 🤔
I’m sorry to hear that Lucy. What was it about it that you found ordinary?? 🙁 N xx
I think it was kind of ordinary, nothing special or amazing, kind of ho hum. But that’s not to detract from all the “amazing” recipes you provide, it’s good to give some honest feedback that’s all. Cheers
100% agree Lucy! It’s definitely not a flavour explosion recipe like the Chilli Lime Fish I posted earlier this week, it’s a more “warm and cosy” sweet baking recipe 🙂 N xx
Hi Nagi
I love your recipes and am so impressed at the range of your knowledge. However, in the UK we don’t use cups for measuring. I guess this is somewhere on your amazing site but would you be able to convert (or signpost me) to where or how please?
Warm regards Ruth
Many thanks for this apple bread recipe i will try it out soon. I become a good cook in my own kitchen since i found your site so many off your recipe that i have already try and my family love it all. My daughter has relocated to Australia from Philippines for her University next year and she is ordering your book it will help her a lot to learn how to cook for herself. Thank you so much for sharing all of your delicious recipes much appreciated ❤
Hi Ruth, under the ‘ingredients’ heading in the recipe is a tab for metric measurements.
Hi Ruth
At the top of the recipe (just above the ingredients) there’s a toggle to take it from Cups to Metric – as a Brit who has emigrated to NZ, it makes my life so much easier! 🙂
You are amazing. Love the cookbook. Totally love the cookbook. So happy for you and Dozer. Major fan for you Nagi. Love your work. Keep it up. Rest next year 🙂
I am so thrilled to have received my first ordered cookbook today it’s as spectacular as I’d hoped but I’m now saving this one for a gift to my mum at Christmas because I also ordered another one from the special bookstore you mentioned in a previous email and that one is going to be getting pride of place in my kitchen! Sorry to waffle on about things other than today’s recipe! Thanks Nagi, we asked and boy did you deliver!
thankyou for the cake recipe
looking forward to trying it out.
Hi Nagi, I was wondering if the apple spice cake will work as well with shredded apples instead of chopped apples ?
Shredded apple is wetter than chopped apple. I assume it’s do with surface area. Anyway unless you want an underbaked cake (because it’s too moist. Speaking from experience), I’d stick with the recipe as written 🙂
I have a question about yogurt. Which kind do you us- Greek or regular, full fat, non fat, etc.? Thanks!
As she includes sour cream as a sub, it’s common practice to use Greek yoghurt because they have similar thickness. As for fat content of yoghurt (sour cream = full fat always), I don’t think it matters but if in doubt go for full fat as fat makes always makes a better product (less dry, more flavour) 🙂