This soft, moist applesauce cake is packed with wholesome ingredients and a delicious classic apple flavor your whole family will love.
The best applesauce cake
If you’ve been on a search for the best homemade applesauce cake recipe around, this one will not let you down!
Light and fluffy, with just 9 ingredients (yes, really), it is everything you could ever hope for in a healthy Fall dessert.
The cake is easy to make and kid friendly, with no eggs or dairy required. It can even be oil free. This is a really great way to use up extra applesauce.
Also try this popular Crustless Pumpkin Pie
“Absolutely wonderful! Moist, flavorful, and leftovers are going to be great for breakfast without feeling unhealthy. With just a little powdered sugar and sliced strawberries on top. Next time I might add some crushed walnuts to the batter.”
-Mina
*Featured comment*
Healthy applesauce cake from scratch
The first time I ever tried an applesauce cake was one November night back in high school, at a friend’s sleepover birthday party.
Trying to be healthier, she had substituted the oil in a boxed spice cake mix with applesauce.
Not normally a fan of low fat cakes or baked goods, I remember being so impressed with how moist and tender the cake was even without added fat.
Over the years, I’ve come up with my own old fashioned applesauce cake that does not rely on a box. Cake from scratch always tastes better.
It envelops the entire kitchen in a sweet cinnamon aroma as you are baking and makes you want to cozy up next to a warm fireplace, fork in hand.
How to make the recipe
Step one: Start by gathering the ingredients and greasing an 8-inch baking pan or lining it with parchment paper.
Step two: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk all liquid ingredients, then stir in remaining ingredients to form a batter.
Step three: Smooth the batter into the prepared baking pan. Place it on the oven’s center rack to cook for 18 minutes or until perfectly fluffy. Let cool.
Step four: Frost as desired, and serve. If you can wait, the cake is even sweeter and better textured a day after it’s made.
I recommend refrigerating leftovers for freshness, and they should be good for about 3-4 days. Or slice and freeze for up to a month.
Apple cake frosting options
The apple spice cake can be dusted with powdered sugar or iced with a basic glaze or with melted coconut butter.
You can also top it with Coconut Whipped Cream, store bought vanilla frosting, dairy free ice cream, or the homemade cream cheese frosting recipe below:
Simply whip together 8 oz packaged or homemade cream cheese or Vegan Cream Cheese with 4 oz butter or vegan butter, 2 cups powdered sugar (unrefined if desired), and 1 tsp pure vanilla extract.
Applesauce snack cake ingredients
For the applesauce: Either sweetened or natural unsweetened applesauce works. And if you wish to use homemade applesauce, that works too!
For the flour: I’ve successfully made the recipe with spelt flour (for a whole grain option), regular all purpose flour, or oat flour for a gluten free cake. In general, I am not a fan of baked goods with whole wheat flour, so sub that at your own risk.
If you prefer a flourless cake, try either this Keto Birthday Cake or my Almond Flour Banana Bread.
For the sweetener: I used unrefined coconut sugar for the cake in the photos. However, regular white or brown sugar or unrefined cane sugar also work. Granulated erythritol or xylitol are likely fine to use as well, although I haven’t tried them here.
Step by step recipe video
Above, watch the video showing how to make an applesauce cake.
The recipe was adapted from this Vegan Cake and from my Apple Bread.
Applesauce Cake
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 tbsp oil or additional applesauce
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp white vinegar
- 1 1/2 cups flour (white, spelt, or oat)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon and optional 1/4 tsp allspice
- optional 1/2 cup raisins, chopped walnuts, or shredded coconut
Instructions
- To make homemade applesauce cake, first preheat the oven to 350 F. Whisk liquid ingredients, then add all remaining ingredients to form a batter. Smooth into a greased or lined 8-inch pan. Bake 18 minutes on the oven's center rack. Let cool, then frost as desired. The cake will taste even sweeter the next day!View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Healthy Cake Recipes
can we use coccoa powder to make it chocolate flavor? If so how much?
We haven’t tried a cocoa version of this applesauce cake, but Katie does have a similar chocolate cake where you could sub applesauce instead of yogurt: https://lett-trim.today/vegan-chocolate-cake-recipe/%3C/a%3E%3Cbr /> (Halve all the ingredients for a single layer cake)
Can this be made as a Bundt cake?
Hmm we have never tried. Be sure to report back if you try it!
Pretty!
Very simple recipe with no special ingredients. I’ve made 3 of these in the last two days. Seriously, I want to eat this cake every day!
Delicious!!! I put in an egg, just to be sure it would hold its structure and lift up a bit more, so I added an extra 1/2 cup of flour. All oat flour and it tastes very nice!! Not as pungent of an apple flavour, but I noticed after adding a layer of cinnamon vanilla icing on top, it complemented the apple taste divinely!!
Highly recommend☺️☺️
curious about adding shredded apple to this recipe? if i add a half cup do i need to change other things?
Hi! Planning to try this recipe. However recently shifted to a high elevation area( 1,795 metres/5,889 ft). Csn you please suggest what changes I need to make for this.
Thank you
Hi! Hopefully there are friends, neighbors, or local online discussion groups you might find more helpful than us, because we have no experience at all with high altitude baking. Might be a good excuse for us to take a trip sometime 🙂
We live at 4750 ft and I bake most items at 25 degrees lower for a few minutes longer and seem to have good results.
I read through the reviews and was intrigued. I made this cake using home made applesauce, and based on the reviews instead of just using additional apple sauce instead of oil, I used: 1 Tblsp olive oil, 1 Tblsp organic peanut butter & 1 Tbls apple sauce. I also doubled the cinnamon and allspice and added 1/4 tsp of ground ginger.
For the flour: I used a combination of oat flour, einkorn flour and all purpose – in equal amounts.
Results: Pretty good. It needed more baking time – 25mins @350 (sea level) and turned out moist – if I had taken it out at 18mins, it would have been under cooked. Next time, I’ll try with spelt flour which has a milder taste than the einkorn.
Happy to find a recipe that uses so little processed sweetener and fats. A great base to play around with and see what works best!
Thanks for the recipe!
Made with an extra 3 TBS of applesauce and 1 TBS olive oil, omitted the sugar entirely, baked for 22 minutes and served to my son for his first birthday smash cake. Super soft and fluffy. Delicious left overs and maybe even better the next day for coffee. Thanks!
Assist with changes for high altitude pls. I’m at 1795 mts/ 5998 ft. Thank you
Hi! Hopefully there are friends, neighbors, or local online discussion groups you might find more helpful than us, because we have no experience at all with high altitude baking other than knowing it can require changes in baked good recipes. Might be a good excuse for us to take a trip sometime 🙂
Hi! Tried and it came out really good. Here are the changes I made for high altitude, hoping it might help somebody. Increase flour by 2tbspn. Reduce b soda & pwdr by abt 1/8 tsp. Baked at 190-200C.
Hi Katie,
I’m just wondering if I can use gluten free flour for this recipe?
Thanks
Hi! We have not tried this particular cake with a gluten free flour blend (only with oat flour as the gf option). But in general, we have good luck with Bob’s gluten free all purpose mix in baking so hopefully something like that can work here too!
Do you think I could substitute mango purée for the applesauce?
We don’t see why not!
Actually followed the recipe. Made it with oat flour; was totally OK !!! Finding a low sugar baked cake is fabulous.
Stellar recipe.
Not enough apple flavor to me. Toying with the idea of replacing the water with apple cider, or chopping up some freeze dried apple pieces to put in it next time. I did oat flour and it did have a good texture!
I was getting ready to make this as a cake for our county fair in a few weeks just to see if I could make a cake. Well, I saw my bread pans and had a senior moment and made it into a quick bread (with cranberries). Oh well, now it’s an Apple bread…lol It’s delicious and my wife even likes it. I might try to make it as a cake also minus the cranberries.