This German apple cake recipe is a well-loved recipe adapted with a light and buttery gluten-free cake base. With a sprinkle of powdered sugar, it's festive enough for a party, but humble and easy enough to be made on a weeknight!
This gluten-free German apple cake recipe is an adaptation of a family recipe of sorts. My family isn't really German, at least not culturally (I guess technically we are since my 23andme ancestry results report me as 27.5% German). Instead, we're working with a new definition of family over here.
I grew up with a large extended family - both of my parents were one of three (and my mom also has three step-brothers). That translates to lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. As a parent, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how different my children's experiences with family will be from ours - both Lucas and I have just one sibling each, which seems pretty common for our generation. (Related: have you read this article on the middle child going extinct?). Will their family feel much much smaller in comparison? For a moment I feel jealous of all the people with many siblings.
Then I reflect back on my family again - I also grew up in a house where you collect and build your own "family." I had a huge family, but not just because of my parents' siblings. All of our holidays always included friends. And those friends became part of our family too.
My childhood next door neighbor Kira always joined us for a second Christmas dinner after finishing her own. My mom's best friend Sarah's children grew up calling my mom "Tante" (Aunt in Danish), her kids are my "cousins" and now my kids call Sarah "Tante," even if biology says otherwise.
That's exactly how Lucas and I have been building our family too.
A family recipe for German apple cake
When I first moved to Berkeley, I lived in a small in-law unit downstairs from our German landlady Cordula and her family. Two years later, Lucas moved in. Cordula eventually helped us buy our first home as our real estate agent, and now, 9 years in, they're definitely family.
Over the years, Cordula has made us countless German recipes and this German apple cake is one of those that she first made me almost a decade ago.
In that sense, this is a family recipe, handed down and adapted with a gluten-free cake. My kind of family.
What is German apple cake?
This German apple cake is a light buttery vanilla cake with sliced apple quarters nestled and sunken inside. The perfect cake for fall, in my book. Though I was tempted to toss in a teaspoon or two of cinnamon, I refrained and kept to the traditional hint of lemon and almond flour. If you add some cinnamon, I won't tattle.
The apples in a German apple cake are no-fuss. They don't require poaching or pre-cooking - instead, this is a fresh apple cake. If you've made German apple cake before, you might know that most of the recipes, including Cordula's, offset the fresh apples by instructing to keep the apple quarters intact with thin slices almost but not quite all the way through, which will help them bake up quicker.
With the switch to a gluten-free apple cake, the baking time increases, which makes that step unnecessary as well. Feel free to slice them however you like - the apples will bake up soft and warm while adding just a bit of texture to each bite.
Cordula describes this German sunken apple cake (or Versunkener Apfelkuchen) as a well-loved favorite cake everyone makes. Every grandma has their own recipe for German apple cake passed on through the generations. With the powdered sugar dust, the cake looks festive without being fancy and it's so easy it can be made on a weeknight.
That's exactly what I did here. Cordula translated her recipe for me years ago and it took me until now to finally adapt it into a gluten-free version. I brought the first trial version of the gluten-free cake for dessert with Cordula last week. It still needed a little tweaking, but she said it brought back memories of the cozy apple cake that feels like being back in Germany.
What flours to use for a gluten-free cake?
This final version combines the base of my gluten-free vanilla cake with her original translated recipe in a 9-inch springform pan. For this cake blend, I use a combination of oat, millet, and sweet rice flours, and added some baking time to the recipe to help these whole grain flours work their magic.
These are the three most commonly used flours in my gluten-free baking. If the prospect of buying three flours (four if you include the almond flour from the original recipe) feels daunting, I assure you that if you plan to continue baking gluten-free cakes, waffles, or pie, you'll use all of these flours in abundance. Here are six of my recipes that use all three:
- Vanilla Bean Pear Persimmon Pie
- Gluten-Free Strawberry Balsamic & Thyme Galettes
- Rosemary Pear & Concord Grape Galette
- Gluten-Free Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Rose Buttercream
- Gluten-Free Vanilla Cupcakes with Goat Cheese Frosting
- Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread Waffles
More Gluten-Free Apple Recipes
- Gluten-Free Caramel Apple Pie
- Gluten-Free Apple Crisp
- Gluten-Free Apple Upside-Down Cake
- Gluten-Free Caramel Apple Pie Cookies
Recipe
Gluten-Free German Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 1 lb apples, 3-4 organic small baking apples, such as honeycrisp
- ½ cup (79 g) millet flour
- ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons (59 g) gluten-free oat flour
- ¼ cup + 2½ tablespoons (66 g) sweet rice flour, also called mochiko, different from brown rice flour or white rice flour
- 2½ tablespoons (20 g) super-fine blanched almond flour
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1¼ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan
- ½ cup + 1 tablespoon (117 g) granulated sugar
- 1¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- Zest of one lemon
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- ¼ cup whole milk
- 1 tablespoon apricot jam
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch springform pan with butter then dust with almond flour.
- Peel the apples and cut into quarters, removing their cores. Slice each quarter into 6-8 slices. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix together the millet flour, oat flour, sweet rice flour, almond flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a mixing bowl with a hand mixer, cream together the butter, vanilla, sugar, and salt until light and fluffy. Mix in the lemon juice and zest until just combined.
- With the mixer on low, add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until just combine.
- With the mixer on low, add half of the flour mixture, followed by the milk, and then the remaining flour, mixing until just combined.
- Pour batter in prepared pan, spreading it into an even layer with a spatula. The batter should be about ¾-inches thick. Arrange apples on top, nesting them close together into the batter. Bake the cake for 45-50 minutes, until the center springs back when poked with a finger and a toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- While still warm, brush apricot jam over the top of the cake. Let cool for a few minutes then release the cake from the springform pan. Let cool completely before sliding a knife under the cake to remove the springform bottom. Once completely cool, dust the cake with powdered sugar just before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Veronica Hernandez-Mena -
Dear Sarah sounds like you and Lucas are building a beautiful family! Remember that you are now part of our big loud Texas Family and we can't wait for you to visit with us and introduce Ira to the Fam! Your German Apple Cake looks divine and perfect for the Holidays! Oh and my Ancestry results surprised me with 10% Italian and 50% Native American with 3% Irish who knew!
Karen @ The Food Charlatan -
I think I'm technically mostly German too. Which means I get the lion's share of this cake. Because, genetics. Right??
DessertForTwo -
This looks absolutely beautiful! And I love that friends are becoming family these days! If you were my neighbor, we'd be at each other's house all day long <3
Alanna -
This cake is a stunner! <3
bella -
The crumb of this cake looks absolutely perfect and I bet it would be good with any fruit!
Jenna -
This looks amazing! I love how moist is looks! Definitely putting this on my fall baking list.
Lynn | The Road to Honey -
I'm secretly jealous of people's larger families too Sarah. My family is teeny tiny & the hubby & haven't ever lived near either of our families. We've also moved around quite a bit (including internationally) so it's been hard to collect "family" along the way. On the positive. . .I guess that means more cake for us and this is such an utterly irresistible cake at that.
LoveCompassionateLee -
Both my parents have lots of siblings and so growing up was fun with all of the parties and get togethers. My brother and I have such a close bond with our cousins. My brother and sister-in-law have a 7 month old. I don't have any children yet. I hope to have children one day and that my nephew and my children will have the same bond.
Thanks for the recipe! My dad will love this cake.
Happy Saturday
http://www.lovecompassionatelee.com/thinkoutloud/october-obsessions
Jennifer Reidy -
Wow, this is a stunner and looks fantastic. Can’t wait to try this out over the holidays for my husband’s family!
Yael -
Hello dear Sarah
Wouls you PLEASE email me Cordula’s original recipe?
I am looking for this original German Apple recipe that I hope will match my mom recipe that I lost in my last move ????
Thank you SO much.
Yael
Denise -
This sounds yummy! We are a gluten free family plus my husband is allergic to almonds. Can you recommend what flour I might substitute for the almond flour? Thanks.
Sarah Menanix -
It's such a little amount of almond flour that I'd just replace it with 10g more millet flour and 10g more oat flour! Should definitely still work <3
Alene -
Everyone's asked for something else so I will chime in with something different. I can't eat rice at all. And I know it holds things together or something like that. Do you think anything else could take its place, like tapioca and more oat? I would love to make and eat this cake. But I do understand if you don't have a suggestion. It's a difficult problem. Thank you.
Sarah Menanix -
I would recommend using as a base!
ellie | from scratch, mostly -
Mmmmm this looks so simple, and yet so so good especially right now that it's midnight! xP With this pregnancy simplicity tastes great--sometimes better than complicated cakes!
Trudie Bamford -
I made this today, and the batter came out really thick, and only half filled the cake pan base, I had to spread it out kinda thinly. The resulting cake had a nice crumb, but was very shallow. Any idea why? It was a 9” pan, and I followed the recipe by weight, so it was accurate.
Sarah Menanix -
Thank you so much for letting me know! I'm so sorry you have this experience. The cake is pretty thin before adding the apples to displace some of it, but it shouldn't be too thin to spread out. I'm re-testing this recipe again right now just to make sure, but I wonder if it could have something to do with specific ingredients (ex. brand of oat flour, sweet rice flour, or even age of baking powder). I'll reply again after I test the recipe once more later today!
Sarah Menanix -
I just pulled the cake test out of the oven and it turned out just as in the pictures above. I'll clarify a few things on the recipe for other folks, but here are some notes I made: When spreading the batter into the 9-inch springform pan before adding the apples, it should be about 3/4-inches thick (measured with a toothpick). After baking, the cake should be 1.75-inches thick in the center. Is this about thick how yours baked up? If not, I wonder if there may have been either an issue with creaming the butter or with the baking powder/soda? Hope this helps!!
Trudie Bamford -
You’re amazing, thank you for such a quick and comprehensive reply!! My batter was super super thick, not like the usual cake batter consistency. But I think it probably baked up about as thick as you mention above, so maybe I was just misjudging it based on your lovely photos. Thank you again!!
Sarah Menanix -
If you head to my instagram and click on the cooking/baking IG story feature I posted some videos on Monday of retesting the cake so you can see the consistency to see if it matches yours (they'll be at the end of the reel, but you can tap through quickly). Butter cake batter tends to be much thicker than oil-based cake batter so perhaps that's the mystery after all!
Su -
This cake looks amazing! What other flour can I use to replace the Millet flour? Maybe sorghum or brown rice flour? Thanks for your help!
Sarah Menanix -
Thanks! While I haven't tried it on this cake, I would substitute sorghum flour (by weight) for the millet flour - I've had luck subbing it in for millet flour in other recipes so that would be your best bet! If you do try it, please let me know how it turns out!
notedicioccolato -
Hi Sarah, I'm in love with apple cakes and this looks so good :) I have a question for you. How can I replace millet flour? it's in many recipes but I can't find it easily. Oat flour, tapioca starch, buckwheat wheat flour? Which one do you suggest and how much? Thank you very much for your help
Sarah Menanix -
Sorry for the delay - I missed this comment! I would suggest replacing the millet flour with sorghum flour, which I've found behaves similarly.
Chinmayi Bettadapur -
Hi! I'm curious to know what the original, non-gluten recipe is. Would you mind sharing that as well? Thanks in advance! --Your fan for a long time
Sarah Menanix -
Her original recipe was larger (1.5x), but using the above ratios, sub out the millet, oat, sweet rice, and xanthan gum with 120g all-purpose flour. Her recipe also calls for ground almonds, but you can use almond flour or meal, so keep that in the recipe. Eliminate the baking soda, and reduce the sugar to 100g. That's pretty close to her original recipe!
Poornima -
Hi! Could I substitute the eggs with flax eggs or a tapioca based commercial egg replacer? Thank you!
Sarah Menanix -
I've not tried it so I can't say whether it would work here, but I have tried baking other gluten-free cake with flax eggs and it seems to work. If you do try it, please let me know if it works as a suitable substitute!