Vegan Applesauce Cake

Our mission here at Foodaciously is to give you truly healthy recipes every time using only wholesome ingredients. So today, we want to show you how to make a delicious vegan applesauce cake without eggs, dairy, or refined sugars. It's 100% healthy.

Most sponge cake recipes include butter and eggs, which are not vegan-friendly. Even vegan options often rely on unhealthy, highly processed ingredients like palm oil-based spreads. Well, we say no to that!

Instead, we made our vegan cake batter with homemade applesauce, almond milk, wholemeal flour, and maple syrup. The result is a spongy, fluffy, and mouth-watering cake with a fourth of fats and half the sugars than the classic sponge cake.

In the recipe below, we'll explain how to prepare applesauce from scratch step-by-step using just five apples. You can also opt for store-bought applesauce, but make sure it's sugar-free. Applesauce is a fantastic alternative to fats, and just like butter, it's able to bind the solids, giving you a super-soft cake. And the good news is that weight by weight it has seven times fewer calories than butter and zero fats.

Egg whites are often added to cake batters to make them airy and fluffy. We achieved a similar result by combining vinegar with baking soda. These two ingredients react together, releasing lots of air bubbles and helping the cake be soft with no need for egg whites (or aquafaba).

This spongy cake is great on its own for a sweet breakfast or a lovely brunch. But you can also glaze it with our simple dark chocolate and applesauce frosting and turn it into a fancy dessert.

Step 1

In this step, we'll show you how to make sugar-free applesauce from scratch. However, you can also opt for the store-bought one if you're short on time.

As one medium-sized 130 g (4.5 oz) apple yields 85 g (3 oz) of applesauce, you'll need 5 apples to prepare the 360 g (12.5 oz) of applesauce for this recipe. We recommend using Golden Delicious or Gala apples.

Peel, quarter, and core the apples, and then roughly chop them into chunks. Add them to a pot and cover with water (1).

Now, bring the water to a boil and simmer covered for 10 minutes over low heat. The apples are ready when they look spongy and can be easily poked through with a fork (2).

Finally, drain the boiled apples well, add them to a food processor and blend them into a smooth puree (3).

1

2

3

Step 2

While the applesauce cools down, let's get the batter ingredients ready.

In a bowl, whisk almond milk with apple cider vinegar, almond extract and lemon zest.

Step 3

In a large mixing bowl, add wholemeal flour, plain flour, starch, baking powder, and baking soda.

Then, stir well to ensure the baking powder is evenly distributed.

Step 4

Next, add the milk and lemon mixture to the flours, followed by maple syrup and 200 g of applesauce.

Work the ingredients with an electric mixer until you have a smooth and creamy batter.

Step 5

Lightly grease a 20 cm (8″) diameter springform cake tin or line it with baking paper.

Then, pour in the cake batter and bake it for 45 minutes at 180 °C (355 °F) in static mode (1).

The cake is ready when a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean (2). Make sure to check the cake in multiple points and poke it all the way through to the bottom. Keep baking a little more if the skewer doesn't come out dry.

1

2

Step 6

At the last 20 minutes of baking time, start preparing the frosting. This is optional, but it will make the cake even tastier. You can check out our full applesauce frosting recipe for more info and tips, or simply follow the instructions below.

Chop the dark chocolate into chunks and add them to a heat-proof bowl. Place it in the microwave for 20 seconds over high heat, then stir the chocolate and put it back, repeating this process until it's completely melted.

Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Set the heat-proof bowl over a pan with water, bring to simmer, and allow the chocolate to melt, stirring occasionally.

Now, stir the melted chocolate with the remaining 160 g of applesauce into a creamy frosting.

Step 7

Remove the baked cake from the tin and spread the chocolate frosting on top with the help of an icing spatula or the back of a spoon.

Leave the applesauce cake to cool down completely before serving.

Tips

• You can swap almond milk with other plant-based alternatives, like oat, soy, coconut drink.

• Don't worry if the cake comes out with a few cracks. The lack of butter and eggs makes the batter more susceptible to cracking. You can flip the cake upside down for a spotless and flat top or cover it with frosting.