Recipe video above. Apples take centre stage in this lovely teacake! The crumb is soft and beautifully moist, there's apple inside and on top. It takes time to chop the apple, but the cake part is dead easy - just a bowl and a wooden spoon! (Correction: plus a whisk and rubber spatula. But NO electric mixer required!)
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Cook Time50 minutesmins
Course: Cakes
Cuisine: Western
Keyword: apple cake, cinnamon apple cake, teacake
Servings: 12
Calories: 299cal
Author: Nagi
Ingredients
Cinnamon Apples:
600g/ 1.2 lb Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored (or any other - red, green, golden)(4 large, 5 small/medium, Note 1)
2 1/2tspcinnamon powder
50g/ 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
2tbspwhite sugar
Dry:
1 1/2cupsflour, plain/all purpose
2tspbaking powder
1/2tspsalt
Wet:
4 tbsp/ 60g unsalted butter, melted
1/2cupoil(canola, vegetable)
2large eggs, at room temperature (~55g/1.95 oz each) (Note 2)
3/4cupwhite sugar, caster / superfine best (but not essential)
Grease a 20cm / 8" springform pan with butter, then line with baking paper (parchment paper).
Apples:
Chop half the apples into 1.25 cm / 1/2" pieces.
Slice the other half into 3mm / 1/8" thick slices.
Place into separate bowls. Sprinkle/drizzle each bowl with half the butter, sugar and cinnamon. Toss to coat, set aside.
Batter:
Whisk Dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Pour Wet ingredients in a separate bowl in the order listed. Whisk well to combine.
Pour Wet into the Dry ingredients bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until flour is incorporated.
Add chopped apple. Gently mix through until JUST dispersed (to keep cinnamon on apple, not dispersed through batter).
Scrape into cake pan, smooth surface.
Top with sliced apples - fan them out in a circle, overlapping each other by 1/4 (fiddle away to use up all the apple / make it even!).
Bake 50 minutes, or until skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (Note 3). Cover loosely with foil if you have to bake beyond 50 min (to stop apples burning).
Place on cooling rack, release sides of springform pan.
Glaze & Serve:
Heat Glaze: Place jam and water in a small bowl, microwave 20 seconds to warm, then mix.
Glaze: Brush apples on surface with glaze.
Cool: Allow to cool at least 30 minutes before cutting with sharp knife. It is sheer perfection when it's still slightly warm in the middle.
Notes
1. Apples - I like making this with tart apples like Granny Smith, Gala, Honey Crisp, for both the flavour the slight tartness adds (rather than just being completely sweet) and that they tend to hold up slightly better for baking. But this recipe will work beautifully with any apples - I've made it with all sorts over the years (Delicious, Fuji, even Golden Delicious).2. Eggs - make sure they're not fridge cold as they will partially solidify the butter and you'll end up with a thicker than ideal batter (cake will still work, but will take longer to bake).Submerge in bowl of warm tap water for 10 minutes - this will be enough to take the chill out.3. Checking for doneness - important to use skewer test to check for doneness because apples differ in juiciness. Really juicy apples = more liquid leeched into batter during bake = 5 to 10 min extra bake time.4. Serving - this is not one of those plain cakes that need cream or ice cream to serve. It's ultra moist and loaded with flavour. But if you really wanted to, my first pick would be vanilla ice cream.Storage - One of the rare cakes in the world that truly holds up well and is just as good 4 days later as it was on the day. Still perfectly moist, gets slightly "pudding like" around the apples (which only makes it better). Store in the fridge if it's hot where you are, but it must be served at room temp (cold is just not the same!)5. Measures in different countries - this is a really forgiving cake. I've made it mixing up US and Aussie cup measures for dry vs wet, and it's still come out just fine. So no need to be meticulous about differences in our cup measures for this cake. From a practical perspective, all the ingredients will be proportionally right using whatever cup measure you use.Oven types - ordinarily for cakes, I'd reduce the temperature for fan forced but because this batter is quite thick and it's topped with apples which weighs the cake down / takes longer for heat to get through to the middle, I found it didn't cook through in the same time. So for this cake, use the same temp whether standard or fan forced.6. Nutrition per slice.