Vegan Apple Pie Cake

At this time of year when apples are in abundance, it’s good to have a few foolproof apple recipes in your repertoire. This vegan apple pie cake is just that: a soft frangipane-style crust with a simple apple filling. I couldn’t decide if it was more of a pie or a cake, so it’s a pie cake.

The apple filling is not over-sweetened in this recipe. Of course, you can add more sugar to taste, but there is something lovely about a slightly tart, fresh apple centre. It marks it out as being homemade, too – shop-bought apple pies are usually quite sugary.

It’s a simple recipe, but if there is a ‘secret’ it’s adding a couple of teaspoons of cornflour to the cooked apples so that they set sufficiently to become a layer in a cake as opposed to a filling that will ooze out when cut.

It’s also important to be generous with the flaked almonds. Even on the second or third day (if cakes ever hang around that long in your house) when the crust has softened a bit, the flaked almonds will still give the topping a crisp texture.

vegan apple pie cake…

ingredients

• 400 g cooking apples (eg, Bramleys; peeled and cored weight)
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 80 g vegan margarine
• 120 g caster sugar, plus 3 tablespoons for the apples
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp (a few drops) almond extract
• 60 g ground almonds
• 160 g self-raising flour
• 100 ml oat (or other non-dairy) milk
• a good handful of flaked almonds
• a dusting of icing (confectioner’s) sugar to finish

method

1. Slice the apples and place in a pan with three tablespoons of sugar. Cook gently until the apples are starting to break down.
2. Remove from the heat. Sprinkle the cornflour over the apples and stir through. Set aside. It should be fairly cool by the time you come to use it.
3. Set the oven to 180°C/360°F and very lightly oil or line the base of an 8″ round cake tin. Use a loose-bottomed or springform tin if you want to extract the whole cake from the tin – otherwise, it may be easier to use a shallower pie tin and cut and remove slices of cake from the tin.
4. Beat the margarine and 120 g sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
5. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and beat for another half minute or so.
6. Fold the ground almonds into the margarine and sugar mixture, followed by around half of the flour. Then fold through half of the milk followed by the remainder of the flour. Finally, fold through the rest of the milk until just evenly combined.
7. Use a spoon to dot small blobs of the mixture over the base of the cake tin. Use around half of the mixture. Spread with a knife or the back of a spoon to create a fairly even layer.
8. Spoon over the apple mixture in the same way, creating a thick ‘pie filling’.
9. Dot the remaining cake mixture over the top and gently spread to create an even layer – it doesn’t need to be perfect but try not to leave gaps.
10. Add a very liberal sprinkling of flaked almonds to the top before baking for around 50 minutes, by which time the cake should be a deep golden brown and the almonds well toasted.
11. Allow the pie cake to cool completely before removing it from the tin and dusting with a spoonful of icing sugar. (If you haven’t used a springform or loose bottomed tin, you might find it easier to leave it in the tin and remove slices, apple pie style.)

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