Pumpkin this or pumpkin that, we all love a good pumpkin recipe but I’ll stand by saying I crave anything and everything apple in the Fall. Apples are versatile as they can either be sweet or tart. You can mix them into savory dishes by roasting alongside meat, eat them fresh in a hearty salad or bake them to perfection. I love making apple pies and apple cakes in the Fall and this year decided to put a little twist on this year’s cake by infusing my milk with chia tea and adding a little extra bump of chai spices directly into the batter.
This cake uses apple sauce instead of butter or oil for some extra apple flavor and moistness. If you can’t have dairy, any dairy free milk can be easily switched out for the skim milk used in the recipe and a dairy free butter for the butter in the crumble. I hope you like this spiced cake, let me know what you think!
Chai Spiced Apple Cake
Equipment
- 10 round baking dish or springform pan
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cup milk of choice (I used skim milk)
- 5 chia tea bags
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 2½ cup gluten free flour or flour of your choice
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- ⅓ cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 egg
- 2 apples chopped into small pieces
Crumb topping
- 5½ tbsp cold butter cubbed (80g)
- ½ cup roughly chopped pecans
- ½ cup gluten free flour or flour of your choice
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 F (163 C). Grease a 10-inch round cake or springform pan.
- In a small saucepan heat the milk on the stove on low heat to a slight simmer. You know it is warm enough when you see small bubbles on the side of the saucepan. Watch it to ensure that it does not boil. Turn off the heat and remove from the stove.
- Pour the warmed milk into a separate bowl. Steep the chai tea bag in the milk for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in another bowl, mix together your dry ingredients, sugars, baking soda, salt, flour, and spices.
- Once the chai tea has steeped for 15 minutes. Remove and discard the tea bags. Add the apple sauce and egg into the bowl and gently whisk to combine.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix to combine. Ensure there are no clumps of try ingredients.
- Fold your chopped apples into the cake batter and pour the batter into the greased pan.
- Make the crumb topping by combining the butter, pecans, flour, sugars, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl. Using your hands, cut the butter into the mixture by rubbing pieces between your thumbs and fingers. Mix the ingredients together until you have a crumbly texture. Evenly cover the top of the cake batter with the crumb topping.
- Bake the cake for 55-70 minutes or until it is fully baked and a long toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 15-20 minutes before removing it from the pan.