Simple wholemeal apple cake – moist wholemeal cake filled with fresh apple and spices; easy to make and the perfect mid-morning or afternoon snack.
As much as I enjoy making towering, intricately decorated layer cakes, the cakes that I most enjoy eating, and crave most often, are generally a far simpler affair. The kind of cakes that aren’t too pretty to look at, but you feel much less guilty about eating a massive wodge of for a mid-morning snack.
I had been craving apple cake for a couple of weeks and when the tree in the garden yielded a few ready-to-pick apples that weren’t great for eating fresh, but were good for cooking with, I finally got round to satisfying the craving with this simple wholemeal apple cake.
This is a moist cake filled with chunks of fresh, tangy apple; the wholemeal flour gives it a hearty texture and the demarera sugar on top lends a nice crunch.
It is very easy to make, only uses one bowl and there is no need to use an electric mixer; the butter is rubbed into the dry ingredients, as if you were making pastry, then the rest of the ingredients are simply stirred in with a spatula.
It keeps well in an airtight container (though only lasted two days in our house) and makes a lovely snack, or even breakfast. To make it a little more indulgent it could be served warm with custard or cream, though I like it best as is, with a big mug of tea.
Simple Wholemeal Apple Cake Recipe:
Simple Wholemeal Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 350 g sharp eating apples such as cox unprepared weight, 12oz/3 medium
- 225 g self-raising wholemeal flour 8oz
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 115 g butter 1 stick, firm but not fridge cold, cubed
- 115 g light brown soft sugar 2/3 cup
- 1 large egg beaten
- 110 ml milk 1/3 + 1/8 cup, more if needed
- 1 1/2 tbsp demarera sugar
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease an 18cm/7in round deep cake tin and line the base with baking parchment.
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Peel, core and dice the apples, set aside. Mix together the flour, salt, cinnamon and mixed spice in a large bowl;add the butter and rub in using your fingertips until the mixture resembles course sand and no chunks of butter remain.
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Stir in the sugar, then the apples. Mix in the egg followed by the milk. The mixture should be quite stiff but if it seems dry add a little more milk until it reaches a reluctant dropping consistency.
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Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and level. bake for about 1 hour, but start checking for doneness after 45 minutes; it should be firm and a skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean. Cover loosely with foil partway through baking if the top begins to darken too much.
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Remove the cake from the oven and immediately sprinkle with demarera sugar. leave to cool in the tin for half an hour or so then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
I am sharing this with Fiesta Friday hosted by Foodbod and O Blog Off, Foodie FriDIY and Foodie Friends Friday
Miranda
Using wholemeal flour is such an interesting idea, I’ll definitely have to try it out! The cake sounds so delicious!
hannahhossack
Thank you! The wholemeal flour makes the cake feel like more of a legitimate snack rather than an indulgent cake (so you can have two slices 😛 )
Vivabop
This looks like such yummy comfort food, I am practically drooling after looking at all your beautiful images. I have a friend with an abundance of cooking apples from the trees in her garden, so I am thinking that this might be the recipe to use some of them up!
hannahhossack
I used apples from the tree in my garden for the cake, so it’s perfect for using up home-grown fruit!
Christina Nifong
Just made a very similar apple cake last night. Love the whole grains in this one. Will have to give it a go!
hannahhossack
Thanks Christina, I’m sure you’ll love it!
Charlie @ The Kitchen Shed
Wholemeal Cake! YUM!! I am a lover of all things wholemeal and cake is another of my all time favourite foods. This looks so delish, perfect for this autumnal weather.
hannahhossack
Thanks Charlie 🙂 It’s the perfect cake for autumn, and the wholemeal and apple make it feel almost healthy (while still being totally delicious!)
Kathy
I was in my kitchen cooking sunday roast / reading blogs / thinking what’s for pudding when I saw your post and as I have a apples from my garden I made this cake and I served it with custard from a tin. It was delicious , thank you for sharing at the right time !
Pam
Ithought it was vegan! What about the egg?
hannahhossack
Hi Pam, this is one of my older recipes which are not vegan; this started out as a regular food/baking blog then I went vegan a couple of years ago. All of my vegan recipes clearly state so in the title. Here is a vegan apple cake recipe: https://domesticgothess.com/blog/2018/09/28/vegan-apple-bundt-cake/ Alternatively, if you want to make this simple wholemeal apple cake one you could try swapping the egg for a flax egg.
Ra'eesah
Had some apples on the turn and some wholemeal self raising flour sitting around so this recipe seemed like a perfect excuse to use up both! Followed the recipe exactly except that I used oat milk and vegan butter and baked in a loaf tin. This tasted amazing but I found that it was a bit too crumbly to slice very well. Not sure what I did wrong. However, it was a perfectly tasty weekend cake to have with a hot mug of tea.