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
Miyokoskitchen
💯 the best (butter) hands down.
Treelinecheese
plain (cream cheese) the best I have found so far.
This recipe is great when using the allspice I found just the cinnamon is not enough and the cake had very little taste. I added nutmeg with the cinnamon which was nice but if you want a stronger spice cake use the allspice or pumpkin pie spice works as well.
DELICIOUS RECIPE! WE LOVED THIS CAKE!
Wonderful! Made it for Christmas Eve breakfast for the family (I made the cake a day ahead of time so I didn’t have to cook this morning.) No one knew it was healthy and everyone loved it. Of course they did, it’s cake for breakfast 🙂
Can I make this without sugar or 1/2 the sugar?
I used King’s All Purpose flour and the extra applesauce instead of oil. Cake was a bit undercooked at time/temp recommended, but made for a moist, thick, pudding-like consistency (which I was happy with). Interestingly, I made a version of your Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting and liked the caramel-y results: used the 1 1/2 cup cashews, 1/4 almond milk, 1 cup of coconut sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and – because it was all I had – 1/4 cup Nutiva Coconut Shortening. Definitely brown in color and like a thick caramel icing. It ROCKED! Thank you, Katie 🙂
Very nice flavor, but definitely missing an egg to bind everything together. Used oat flour. I would add an egg next time.
This is a “Vegan” page, eggs are evil.
👉Please go Vegan👈
My neighbors keep chickens. Why are the eggs evil? They get laid even without a rooster (hmm, that sounded wrong, lol.)
youre insufferable
Thanks Kim! I’ll try the egg.
This cake is yummy and very easy to make! I added extra spices, subbed peanut butter for the oil/extra applesauce for a little more protein, and added toasted pumpkin seeds along with some raisins and walnuts to boost the protein even more. It turned out great. Thanks, Katie!
Thank you so much for making it!
Cake had great texture, but was bland. Needs a lot more seasoning / spices and maybe more apple sauce. It’s not especially sweet, but that’s a plus.
Hi. Is there a way to make this chocolate?
Sure. Add cocoa (probably start with 1-4 Tbls), add chocolate chips, add chocolate frosting… Mmm!
Fab recipe… do you make your own apple sauce? Do I add anything to the apples ie., water, sugar. I wondered what type of apple to make it with (UK) any suggestions gratefully received. Is there a metric conversion button anywhere? I am not sure if I am missing it or if there is no conversion button on this recipe. Thanks
It’s so strange that applesauce isn’t widely available in the UK, because it’s everywhere in the US! What about apple baby food perhaps? There’s no conversion button on the recipe, as unfortunately we have found online conversion buttons that change serving size or from cups to grams to not always yield accurate results and we wouldn’t want anyone going with the inaccurate auto generated results.
Saw this on facebook yesterday when a friend shared your recipe and I had all the ingredients. It was even better than I expected and needed no frosting.