Name: Easy Healthy Apple Cake With Frosting
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Gluten-Free
Ingredients: 2 sweet apples, chopped; 2 tbsp coconut oil and some water; 3 eggs; 2 tbsp yogurt; 1 tsp baking soda; 1 tsp cinnamon; 1/3 tsp nutmeg; 1 cup 3 tbsp oats; 5 tbsp dark brown sugar; 4 tbsp butter; 1/4 cup pecans or walnuts; 3 tbsp Yogurt; 3 tbsp Mascarpone; 1 1/2 tsp Honey or maple syrup (or to taste)

This healthy gluten-free apple cake recipe with yogurt mascarpone frosting is super easy and doesn’t take a long time to make.

And the result?

An amazingly tasty flourless oatmeal apple cake with a perfectly creamy frosting that everyone will love.

Although, feel free to use cream cheese in the recipe if you don’t have mascarpone. Either way you will love this simple healthy fall dessert!

Gluten-Free Apple Cake Ingredients

apples – this recipe is a great way to use up old fruit or fruit you or your kids haven’t eaten. But brand new shiny apples will do well here too, just make sure they’re on the sweeter side like Honeycrisp, Gala or I think I used Golden Delicious (I picked it on my morning walk and I’m not an apple expert, I bite into it and hope for the best!)
coconut oil and some water – these are needed to pre-cook the apples before adding them to the baking mixture
eggs – as our biding agent
baking soda
cinnamon
nutmeg
gluten-free oats – this will act as our flour and we will be blending the ingredients for the mixture with an immersion blender, so you do not need to grind them. Rolled or fine oats are both fine.
dark brown muscovado sugar – I think it’s muscovado sugar. It has a deeper flavor and more nutrients than regular sugar (though I wouldn’t count on sugar to cover my daily requirements for magnesium for example). You can also use brown sugar or coconut sugar.
butter – you can also use coconut oil for the mixture
pecans – for some crunch and added taste. You can also use walnuts or seeds if you can’t tolerate nuts.
yogurt – we need some for the cake mixture and some for the frosting
mascarpone – no words here, it’s for the frosting
honey or maple syrup – to sweeten the frosting

How To Make The Easy Healthy Apple Cake With Frosting

As mentioned, making this delicious healthy gluten-free apple cake is super easy, especially for a dessert recipe. You will need to do 3 main things – 1) the apples, 2) the mixture and 3) the frosting. I know sounds like a lot, but it requires very basic skills. Here’s the process:

Saute the apples. Peel and cut the apples, add them to a pan with coconut oil and cinnamon and saute for 3-4 minutes until they soften. Add a little bit of water if they start to stick to the pan.

Make the cake mixture. Mix the baking soda with the yogurt, until it fluffs up. Add in the eggs, oats, cinnamon, melted butter, sugar, and nutmeg. Blend with an immersion blender until smooth. I always do a taste test to make sure the mix is sweet enough for me (some of the sweetness will go away with baking). Let the mixture sit in the fridge for about 5-6 minutes while the apples are cooling off.

Baking. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Then line a small baking pan with parchment paper (I used this (8″x 6″) Tupperware from IKEA). Pour a little more than 1/2 of the mixture to the pan and spread it as the bottom layer. Then add the apples as the second layer, pecans on top. Then the rest of the cake mixture is the last layer. Spreading it over the apples might be a bit tricky, but with a bit of determination, it works! Time to bake for 20-25 minutes. (mine was ready after 20, but keep an eye, since ovens are different).

Frosting. While the gluten-free apple cake is baking, it’s time to make the frosting mixture. For this, you will simply mix the mascarpone with the yogurt and honey or maple syrup. Whisk to get a smooth mixture without any lumps.

Final Touches. When the cake is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool off. Once completely cooled, spread the frosting all over the cake.

Fridge. Place the apple cake in the fridge, so that the frosting can firm up. It will be ready within an hour.

Now, cut the cake in slices and enjoy!

Tips and Options

This easy gluten-free apple cake recipe does not make a ton (around 7-8 small servings), so if you want to make it for more people – double or triple the recipe and use a bigger baking pan.

If you don’t have a small baking pan (8″x 6″) but want to make the recipe, you can also turn it into muffins or cupcakes. I don’t currently have a muffin pan, so this stainless steel Tupperware from Ikea was my baking pan and storage container.

You can store the cake in the fridge for at least 3 days in an airtight container.

More Easy Dessert Recipes

I hope you enjoy this tasty easy healthy gluten-free apple cake with creamy frosting when you make it! It is currently my favorite dessert, but if you want even more easy fall treats, check out these:

Yield: 8