With the fall season rushing to fill our senses, and our kitchens, with warm and comforting October favorites.
My favorite flavor’s during October center around apples, caramels, and those delectable crumbly cobbler style muffins and cakes.
I decided to start with the apple’s, as they go so well with fall spices and syrupy drizzles, which are my weakness.
Personally, I believe that an apple can make or break the flavor combinations in certain styles of bakes. While many apples are plenty sweet, tart, and juicy when you eat them raw, things change when you bake with them. If the apple isn’t tart enough to stand up to all the sugary flavor, the apple flavor gets drowned out, if you know what I mean.
So began my mission toward successfully baking a gluten-free apple cake from scratch… no more store bought box mixes! It was time…
First, I needed to find a recipe that I could follow for a flavorful apple cake, and gluten-free. Honestly, I see amazing videos on Facebook all the time, which is where I watched a woman make these jaw-droppingly glorious Apple Crumble Muffins. The down side was that it wasn’t gluten-free, and also made with muffin tins, which I don’t have unless my girlfriend brings hers over when she comes for Sunday Coffee/Tea.
So, I headed back to Pinterest, which is God’s gift to all DIYer’s!
I realized that an apple cake or bread was the better choice for this recipe, as using a muffin recipe can have unpredictable results when converting it to a bake in a cake or bread tin. I decided on a cake recipe, as I want to save the bread one for a pumpkin dessert I’m attempting to bake for you, on a different episode.
While I was forced to make numerous adjustments, which I will share as we go, under no circumstances do I wish to take any credit away from those that came before.
Here’s the original recipe and link, as I’m certain that this recipe will be just as wonderful, if not better than mine. Be sure and check it out…
High Protein Apple Crumble Cake (Gluten-Free!)
Make this Gluten-Free Apple Crumble Cake and fall obsessed in minutes! This high-protein dessert is a dream come true for so many reasons; it’s decadent without being heavy, it’s gluten-free and easy to digest, it’s sweet but not going to spoil your sweet tooth and it’s just downright beautiful! It’s packed with warm spices and the addition of protein powder makes it a nutritious choice, perfect for enjoying any time of day and sure to become a seasonal favourite.
Servings: 8
Author: Teri-Ann Carty
Prep Time: 15 minutes mins
Cook Time: 1 hour hr
Total Time: 1 hour hr 15 minutes minsCook Mode
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Equipment
- oven, 8″ springform pan
- mixing bowls
- measuring spoons and cups
- offset spatula
- rubber spatula
Ingredients
Apple Crumble Cake Ingredients:
- 3 eggs room temperature
- ½ cup sugar coconut sugar works in this recipe too!
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½ cup olive oil
- ½ cup milk
- 1¾ cup gluten-free flour blend
- ½ tsp xanthan gum omit if your flour already has it
- 1 scoop Botanica Protein Powder (¼ cup)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ginger and nutmeg
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 medium apple diced
Crumble Topping Ingredients
- ½ cup oats
- ½ cup gluten free flour
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ cup pecans chopped
- pinch of salt
- ¼ cup butter melted
Optional Icing Ingredients
- ½ cup icing sugar
- 1 tbsp cream
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp vanilla
- pinch salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350d. Grease and line an 8”pan with parchment paper and set aside.
- Add oil, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla to a bowl and whisk to combine.
- In a separate bowl add dry ingredients and whisk to combine. Add dry to wet, whisking till you reach a smooth batter. Add chopped apples and fold them in until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it out with an offset spatula.
- Make the crumble topping by adding dry ingredients to a medium sized bowl.
- Pour melted butter on top and stir to combine. The crumble should hold together when squeezed.
- Scatter the top of the cake evenly with the crumble topping.
- Place in preheated oven and bake until a skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake and the cake is golden brown, 45-50 minutes.
- Let the loaf rest in the pan for 15 minutes before removing the springform ring. Carefully transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool completely.
- While cake is cooling make the glaze. Add glaze ingredients to a small bowl and whisk to combine.
- Once cake is cool drizzle the top with the glaze and enjoy!
Nutrition
Serving: 1g | Calories: 542kcal | Carbohydrates: 72g | Protein: 10g | Fat: 26g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 14g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 88mg | Sodium: 783mg | Potassium: 143mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 43g | Vitamin A: 334IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 155mg | Iron: 2mg
**Disclaimers** My cooking skills, ingredients, and baking tools are all based on real world baking! Not everyone can afford most of the high end name brands, or the organic labeled ingredients that triple the price simply by saying the words Gluten-free, Dairy-free, and the like. I also don’t think that the craftsmanship of said measuring cups and spoons, pans, trays, and/or cooling racks need be a deal breaker. I once watched a video of a guy making an entire burger on a clothing iron, and I would have eaten it! Rule for today is… sometimes ghetto get’s the same result! It depends on how hungry you are for somethin sweet, I guess.
Now, back to the bake…
So, with recipe on board, I set about my task of mastering the Apple.
I chose SugarBee for our apples, though you may have your own personal favorites.
As you may have noticed, there was far more sugar sweetening in the recipe, than apples, in my opinion, so I did some changing in regards to that drizzly sugar syrup topping. I also didn’t have any safe protein powder to add, as many use wheat and I don’t have the one she recommends. If any of you do this recipe and use the protein powder, please let me know how it turns out. I may go back later and try doing it with said powder added, just to see.
What I decided to do was add an extra quarter cup of my gluten-free flour to offset the moisture. I also did a radical change to the crumble topping, so watch for it, as we go. Alright, let’s do this!
First things first… we need to prep. A clean baking environment, breeds success…
I absolutely do pray that God gives me success, when baking. I need all the help I can get!
Apples peeled and diced. Half were set aside to be mixed into the cake…
The other half were turned into an apple compote, with quarter cup sugar, quarter cup brown sugar and quarter cup plant-based butter. I used Country Crock…
I didn’t make any other changes to the cake recipe, aside from the protein powder. I used Oat Milk in mine, but she says that you can use any plant based milk. I took the apples that were set aside, tossed them in some of the cake mixture, and then mixed them into the cake mix.
After lightly spraying my 9 inch cake pan with Olive Oil spray, I poured the cake mixture into my pan.
Here is where I went off the reservation… and a miracle happened!
I took all of the apple compote, liquid and all, and poured it on the top of my cake mixture. Looks reckless, doesn’t it? I didn’t stop there, though…
I filled that bad boy all the way to the rim of the pan with the crumble mixture, minus the pecans (I didn’t have any) from the recipe above. I was so worried that it would overflow before the sugar had a chance to caramelize and soak into the crumble mixture that I put a dish under it to catch the spills.
I realized early on that 350 for 45 – 50 minutes wasn’t going to get it done for this monstrosity, so I baked this apple crumble bomb at 380 for a whapping hour and 15 minutes… I know, right?! What was I thinking?
I think sometimes God loves to show favor on His children in some of the smallest, and most unexpected ways… that’s part of why I love God so!
Don’t ask me how, but I watched a miracle unfold, right before my oven eyes…
The only way that I can describe this would be to suggest one combine the most deliciously moist and flavorful apple cake/pie they’ve ever had, with the chewiest and gooiest apple oatmeal cookie known to mankind!
It was so heavy that I had to use two plastic plates from the Dollar Tree just to flip it over and out of the cake pan…
The apples didn’t sink to the bottom, nor was the cake stodgy or too bready, even after placing that pie filling on top, before baking.
I know the lighting is terrible, but I hope you get the idea… light and fluffy, with a caramelly crunchy topping.
I wouldn’t dream of taking credit for this amazing recipe, nor do I wish to forget the video from Facebook that gave me the idea for the compote, so please be sure to visit this site, as well. You never know, perhaps you’ll want to make them, too. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1226523166181722
I would have to say that this experiment in gluten-free baking was quite literally, The Bomb! Mee-maws Apple Bomb, that is…
Journey With Me! 