This Plant Based Vegan Caramel Apple Cake was made as a healthy re-creation of the apple fritters we would get at the donut shop growing up. Typically apple fritters are deep fried and coated in a sugar syrup. This cake is gluten free, oil free, and refined sugar free but full of the nostalgic flavor of its unhealthy counterpart.
Ingredients
Cake
2 cups oat flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup medjool dates
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or plant based milk of choice)
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 ripe banana
1 1/2 cups chopped apple
1 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Caramel Sauce
1 cup dates
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 cup water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Mix oat flour, almond flour, baking soda and cinnamon together in a mixing bowl.
- Blend the dates, almond milk, vanilla, apple cider vinegar and banana together in a blender until smooth.
- Stir the blender ingredients into the dry ingredients and apple chunks.
- Pour into a parchment paper lined cake pan.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
- Five minutes before cake is done baking, place the chopped pecans on a cookie sheet and bake for the remaining 5 minutes.
- Take cake out of oven and let cool for 20 minutes.
- Flip cake out of pan onto a cake stand or plate.
- Blend caramel sauce ingredients in a blender until smooth.
- Pour caramel sauce over cake.
- Sprinkle toasted pecans on top of cake.
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20 comments
This was fantastic – thank you!
I had to double the milk to get this into any kind of cake batter – total 2.5 cups of flour, correct? I feel crazy! It’s baking now but I’m hopeful it comes out delicious 🙏 will update!
I think you may have done what I mistakenly did, which was to go by weight instead of using measuring cups. I had the exact same problem!
The cake is delicious. I posted a pic on Facebook and people went a little nuts over it. (Nuts! Get it? I’m hilarious.) My wife swapped the caramel frosting for a coconut sugar “brown sugar” topping that she thickened with a couple dates. It was delicious. Tell me: Why no salt in the recipe? Wouldn’t that react with the baking soda and cause the cake to rise more a bit, resulting in a slightly more cake-like consistency? Asking for a friend. (Well, asking for myself and my wife.)
Being salt free was a direction we were going for a while and now we are finding out that it isn’t quite right. We still encourage low sodium because most people still get way too much salt in their diets. You are right, the salt might help it to rise a bit better. I will have to try it out next time I make that cake =).
Thank you for another wonderful WFPB cake recipe! It reminds me of a German apple cake recipe I used to make but now no butter or oil, no eggs, no dairy, no sugar (processed), no gluten. Nothing but delicious! It is so amazing to make a great cake without any of those things but you have done it! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for this recipe! The cake was delicious. I’m so glad I found you! ❤️
Hi Jill I wanted to order the liquid and dry vanilla you use. I could not find it on your site. Can you help me with this dilema. I made the oven roasted potatoes salad and it was awesome. I ate it for breakfast.
Thank you. Martha
Here is a link to a good vanilla extract.
https://amzn.to/2SXWFDQ
Here is the powdered one:
https://amzn.to/2ztTFbw
Oats seem to be in everthing and I don’t eat them. Is there a good sub? Thank you.
I haven’t really tried any other flours in this recipe, sorry Naomi.
Hi Jill, I love your utube show and your recipes. I don’t like bananas used in anything! I will eat them alone, but can always taste them above everything in recipes. Could I substitute applesauce for bananas and still achieve the same results. Thanks so much!
I think applesauce should work just the same. =)
This is our go-to whole-food, plant-based cake. It’s tasty, moist and easy to make. And the topping legit tastes like caramel! We’d easily rate this recipe 4/5. (We tried another site’s vegan Italian Cream Cake recipe and we’d give it 2/5–and it even had oil and coconut cream.) The key, for us anyway, is to bake it just enough but not too long. 30 minutes is about right, unless we somehow end up with a slightly drier or wetter mix (moisture content from bananas is hard to gauge and control). But hey, practice makes perfect, right?
(BTW, we never taste the bananas.)
This recipe made my husband do a happy dance. 😊
Wow! This cake is amazing! I made it for Valentine’s Day and it was a hit. The caramel sauce was so good! I added half apple pie spice along with the cinnamon. I’ll definitely be making it again.
This is so yummy! The second time we made it, we made a double batch to turn it into a layer cake. A new family favorite!!
Is there a way to use raisins or maybe maple syrup instead of dates? My husband is allergic to dates.
You can use raisins in the same amount.
This cake is absolutely fantastic, it’s my go to cake when i have a sweet tooth. Just try not to eat all the batter before you bake it. Guilt-free cake, who could ask for more!