Apple & Prune Honey Cake

This simple yet delicious cake is perfect for any occasion. Healthy enough to have as an after-school treat but fancy enough to serve guests for tea. This cake has a gooey chunky fruity centre with a morish crisp outer. A refined sugar-free cake using spelt flour that is full of fibre, and we all know how good prunes are for the gut!

Sub the spelt flour for sorghum flour or a gluten-free mix if you need to be wheat-free or gluten-free.

Get our lovely Healthy Bites newsletter!

Each week, you’ll get an amazing recipe, a useful health tip, and an ingredient to jazz up your shopping basket!

Apple & Prune Honey Cake

4 from 2 votes
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Course Baking, Puddings
Servings 10 people
Suitable for Special Diet (or adaptable) Gluten-free, Nut-free

Ingredients
  

Instructions
 

  • Pre-heat the oven to 140C fan or 160C non fan and line or grease a baking tin. A round one 10″ or 25cm across works well for the standard quantity in the recipe.
  • Keep the butter out of the fridge overnight or zap the butter in the microwave for 20-30 seconds until it is very soft. Then using an electric whisk beat the honey into the butter.
  • Add the ground almonds, spelt flour, baking powder, coconut sugar, almond essence and eggs, and beat together with an electric whisk for a good minute.
  • Cut the prunes into quarters and then peel and slice the apples into ½ inch wedges.
  • Fold in the prunes to the mixture until well-coated.
  • Spread about a third of the mixture into the base of the tin, use enough to cover it well.
  • Cover the base layer with the sliced apples, don’t worry if there is a little overlap just make sure that the whole cake is covered.
  • Gently spoon the remaining mixture over the top of the apples making sure none are poking through.
  • Sprinkle the sliced almonds and pumpkin seeds over the top and pop in the oven on the middle shelf to bake.
  • Check the cake with a cocktail stick after 40 minutes, and if it needs longer in the oven keep checking every 5 minutes. In most ovens, it takes an hour to bake fully, however some ovens run hot and 40 minutes is plenty.
  • If the top is getting brown very early on simply cover with some baking paper or foil to stop it burning.

Notes

  • Make gluten-free by swapping the spelt flour to regular GF flour or sorghum flour.
  • For nut-free, substitute ground almonds for the same weight in GF flour, use vanilla essence and sprinkle the top with sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.
  • Dairy-free, switch butter to organic vegan spread or light olive oil
  • Store this cake in a cake tin for 4 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Per serving. Nutrition content in food is never consistent, so take these estimates with a pinch of salt! Also, our recipes tend to use low-GI carbs and sugars, so these values are not directly comparable with shop-bought UPFs.

Tried this recipe?Let everyone know how it was!

Get more recipes like this

Lucinda's cookbooks

The Good Stuff

Over 100 easy recipes for toddlers to teens, with clever swaps for the main allergens.

Brain Brilliance

60 nourishing recipes and a nutrition toolkit for dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, autism and all neurodivergent kids.

I Can't Believe It's Baby Food

Cook once with more than 120 weaning recipes from six months that the whole family can share.

Three bestselling family nutrition cookbooks from NatureDoc founder Lucinda Miller, packed with recipes that feed growing brains, gut and immunity.

Responses

4 from 2 votes

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




    1. Hi Michelle – all the allergen swaps are always at the bottom of my recipes – spelt does contain gluten and therefore please use Doves Farm, Free From Fairy or Bobs Red Mill gluten-free flours or Sorghum flour.

  1. 5 stars
    Absolutely delicious! One of the best (if not the best!) gluten free cakes we have ever made. Made with a mix of sorghum and Doves Farm flour. I replaces prunes with chopped dates.

  2. 3 stars
    Honestly I don’t know where I went wrong! I probably have half the amount of mixture I should to cover a 10in pan! Barely covered the base and tons of apple on show on top. But will try again next time in 7in pan.