Enjoy a slice of this Kerry Apple Cake featuring a moist and tender cake filled with sweet apples topped with warm spices. This is perfect for any occasion, but is also an ideal everyday cake recipe with how little effort it requires to whip up.
Table of Contents
Ingredients and substitutions for Kerry Apple Cake
- Butter: Unsalted softened was used here as this is fresher than salted, however, you could absolutely substitute salted butter here.
- Sugar: As a result of using superfine or caster sugar, the nice fine granules dissolve into our cake and add sweetness without adding additional flavors. Demerara sugar is minimally process with large granuales which add a nice textural difference to the cake, you can replace with raw sugar for a similar result.
- Eggs: As well as adding structure to the cake, the room temperature eggs will bind everything together, so are essential.
- Plain flour: Plain or all purpose works best here for a nice texture to the cake. You could replace with cake flour for an even more tender crumb, if you prefer.
- Baking powder: This helps our cake rise so it is nice and light.
- Apples: The most traditional to use would be a Bramley Cooking Apple, but for those who cannot source one, a Granny Smith or Royal Gala is the best replacement. These apples have a firm texture that hold their shape during baking and a slight sweetness.
See recipe card for quantities.
How to make Kerry Apple Cake:
Step 1: Pale and fluffy: Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric beater.
Step 2: Dry ingredients: Stir the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.
Step 3: Eggs and flour: Add โ eggs and โ flour and whip on low until well combined.
Step 4: Apples: Toss the apples in alongside the lemon zest and stir until well mixed.
Step 5: Cake batter: Spoon the batter into your prepared pan and spread out evenly; topping with the apple slices, sugar and spices.
Step 6: Bake: Slide into the preheated oven and bake until golden brown and slightly pulling away from the sides of the tin.
Step 7: Cool: Allow to cool on a wire rack before removing.
Step 8: Serve: Finish with an optional sprinkle of powdered sugar.
Step 9: Slice: Plate up and dig in!
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Kerry Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 175 grams / 6 ounces butter room temperature
- 175 grams / ยพ cup + 2 tablespoons superfine/caster sugar
- 110 grams / 2 large eggs room temperature and whisked
- 225 grams / 1 โ cups + 1 tablespoon plain flour
- 4 grams / 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 medium apples peeled, cored and sliced
- 2 grams / 1 teaspoon lemon peel
- 12 grams / 1 tablespoon Demerara sugar
- ยผ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ยผ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and line a 20 cm or 8 inch round cake tin with parchment paper.
- Toss the butter and sugar into a bowl and whip until pale and fluffy, approximately 3 minutes.
- Toss the flour and baking powder into a separate small bowl and stir to combine.
- Add โ of the eggs and flour mixture and whip on the lowest setting until combined.
- Repeat adding in another โ of the eggs and flour in portions, until smooth and no dry portions remain in the base of the bowl.
- Stir in the apple and lemon zest until combined.
- Spoon into your prepared tin and smooth out.
- (Optional) You can choose to throw in all the apples into the batter or you can top the cake with ยฝ the apples for a bit more of a visual detail to the cake.
- Sprinkle over the sugar and spices.
- Bake for 1 hour, until golden and the edges are beginning to pull away from the tin.
- Allow to cool before topping with an optional sprinkle of powdered sugar.
- Slice, serve and dig in!
Video
Notes
- Apples: The most traditional to use would be a Bramley Cooking Apple, but for those who cannot source one, a Granny Smith or Royal Gala is the best replacement. These apples have a firm texture that hold their shape during baking and a slight sweetness.
- Slicing the apples: The way the apples are cut for the cake for asthetic reasons. If you want to steamline the preparation time, feel free to cube all the apples and toss them all into the batter at the same time.
- Cake tin: A round spring form tin was used, however, a standard cake tin of similar size would also work well.
Nutrition
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Made it and loved it?
If you have made this recipe, it would mean so much to leave a review below to help more people find this.
Everly
A friend sent me this cake as she knows how much I love apple cake and I had to try it. The cinnamon sugar topping was my favorite as it has such a beautiful flavor to compliment the whole cake. Thanks so much
Sylvie Taylor
So great to hear how much you enjoyed this Everly. Definitely agree with you that the topping is my favorite bit too. Thanks
Ophelia
This Irish Apple Cake might be my favorite apple dessert because of the texture. Have made this several times in the past few months.
Sylvie Taylor
Love to hear how much you enjoy this Ophelia! It's a favorite for us too. Thanks,
Rosie
Love apple cakes and have baked many throughout the years. The ground cinnamon and sugar topping directly on top of apple slices made this cake one I'll definitely put into rotatition. Thank you
Sylvie Taylor
So glad to hear you enjoy this cake as much as we do Rosie!
Rachel
Stumbled on this recipe whilst looking for an apple cake that doesn't need many for a great apple flavor, well, this was so good I wished I'd made two cakes!!
Sylvie Taylor
Agree with you about needing to double the recipe everytime I bake it too!