Delicious Italian Apple Loaf Cake Recipe (Torta di Mele – Dairy-Free Option)
This apple loaf cake is super moist and light with a hint of lemon. The recipe could be easily adapted for spelt or buckwheat flour, and oat milk could be used instead of regular milk.
I made this apple loaf cake (Torta di Mele) recipe up when I was on holiday in 2019. We were staying in a small town 30 km from Firenze (Florence), called San Giovanni Valdarno. We were fortunate to have our holiday apartment close to a daily market. During our visit, it was apple season, so every day when I visited the local markets, cheap apples were abundant. As I love anything with cooked apples, cake or pudding, I decided to research Italian apple cakes. After baking a few versions in my only loaf tin, I came up with this recipe – apple loaf cake (torta di mele). This apple loaf cake is super moist and light with a hint of lemon. The recipe could be easily adapted for spelt or buckwheat flour, and oat milk could be used instead of regular milk.
Ingredients
- Sugar, castor if you have it – 180g (3/4 cup + 2 ts)
- Butter, soft – 125g (1/2 cup)
- Large eggs – 2
- Milk, your choice – 125ml (1/2 cup)
- Flour, self-raising or spelt or a gluten-free blend – 250g self-raising flour – 1 cup + 2/3 cup
- Large Apple green or golden, peeled, cored and sliced 1cm thick– 2
- Lemon zest – 1/2 (2 tsps)
- Vanilla extract – 1 teaspoon
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C, 170˚C fan
- Line the loaf tin with baking paper.
- Beat the sugar and soft butter together until creamy.
- Add eggs and mix, then milk, vanilla and zest.
- Add flour and mix through.
- Fold in half the sliced apples.
- Pour into your prepared tin, add the remaining apples neatly across the top and sprinkle with white sugar.
- Bake for 50-6o minutes until golden and the skewer comes out clean after testing.