Healthy Applesauce Cake (one bowl, low sugar)
Meet your new favourite, Healthy Applesauce Cake! It's moist, and made with both applesauce and shredded apples. This lower-sugar cake is soft, cozy, and cinnamony. Perfect for an afternoon snack or a simple dessert.
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This recipe is written in proud and paid partnership with our friends at the Canadian Sugar Institute. We can't wait for you to try this one!
Have you ever come across one of those recipes that somehow disappear from the kitchen before you've even had a chance to store some away? This Healthy Applesauce Cake does exactly that-disapear, fast!
Our kids love it, and whenever company comes over, it seems to disappear even faster. We've made it enough times to know that a batch barely lasts 48 hours around here. That also happens when we make these double chocolate black bean muffins and animal oat crackers.
Even better, this snack cake is also a source of fibre, includes fruit and whole grains, and has become part of all the little food memories we're creating together.
Recipe Overview: Healthy Applesauce Cake
🍎 Just ⅓ cup of sugar for the whole pan, about 1⅓ teaspoons per square, down from more than double that in our first version
😀 Oats, ground flax, and apple peel bring the fibre to about 2g/serving
🙌 A one-bowl recipe (just like these one bowl banana waffles)
💙 Freezes well as individual squares for lunches
🍏 Made with unsweetened applesauce and a whole shredded apple
⏱️ A five minute batter rest lets the oats and flax absorb moisture, which is what keeps the crumb tender instead of gritty
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Apple cake vs applesauce cake: what's the difference?
In an apple cake you'll find either chopped pieces of apples or shredded apples. This provides texture and the apple flavour. In an applesauce cake, applesauce is mixed into the batter to add moisture and produce a fine crumb.
As Registered Dietitians, we decided to use both! So you could call it an apple applesauce cake, but that seemed like a bit much. We wanted to include shredded apple (with the skin) for a fibre and flavour boost. While the applesauce also adds natural sweetness.
In the end, we're thrilled with the combination of applesauce, fresh apple, and white sugar to create a sweet flavourful snack cake that we genuinely love. An earlier adaptation of this recipe called for more than twice as much sugar! We experimented by using less and found it to be just as delicious! In our humble opinion, we hit the "sweet spot" (yes, pun intended!).
This snack cake* is perfect to send in lunches or for an after school snack with a glass of milk. Since there is some added sugar, you'll want to be mindful of serving it to those under two years old (more on that below!).
*A snack or snacking cake is typically a lower sugar cake without the fuss of a fancy frosting.
Jump to:
Key ingredients
Apple
Use any variety of apple you have at home. This recipe calls for a medium apple that you'll be shredding, with the peel on!
Applesauce
Choose an unsweetened applesauce for this recipe. We opted for unsweetened so that we could control the amount of sugar added in. You can use homemade or store bought!
Oats
This recipe will work great with rolled or quick cooking oats. Do not use steel cut oats, as they will not get cooked through! Need more ways to use up oats? You'll love this layered toddler oat bar and this version of energy oatmeal balls for busy toddlers and kids.
Sugar
For this recipe, you'll use ⅓ cup granulated sugar, which offers just enough sweetness paired with the apples and applesauce.
Cinnamon
This is the spice that adds a sweet warming flavour. You can also add ground ginger or nutmeg if you'd like.
Allergen information and substitutes
This recipe contains three of the top priority allergens in Canada: dairy, wheat, and eggs.
To make the recipe dairy free, swap the butter for a vegan margarine. Or, you could use any vegetable oil and it will be tasty!
Instead of wheat, use any other grain that works in your home such as a gluten free mix with xanthan gum.
And, if you're an egg-free household, you can use an egg replacement or try this flax egg.
How to make this applesauce cake
The full recipe is below and we strongly encourage you to watch the video to understand how to make the layers (there's flipping involved!), but here are a few key steps to visualize the process.
Step #1: Mix together butter, eggs, applesauce, shredded apple, and vanilla really well in a large bowl.
Step #2: Add in the remaining dry ingredients to the same bowl.
Step #3: Fold the dry ingredients into the wet, being sure to not overmix. Let the batter sit for 5 minutes.
Step #4: Bake and serve!
How to serve applesauce cake at each stage
Under 12 months - this recipe is not recommended for babies because it contains sugar. Formally it is recommended that children under 24 months not be offered foods that contain added sources of sugar. In this recipe we utilize sweetness from white sugar which by definition is an added sugar.
12 - 24 months: again, the recipe isn't recommended for young eaters for the reasons we mention above. However, this recipe is wholesome-there are whole grains, fruit, and fibre! You're welcome to wait until 24 months if you're a rule follower, or serve it at 18 months in a smaller serving with other nutrient dense foods knowing that it contributes a small amount of added sugar (XXXX!).
24 months and beyond: prepare the snack cake exactly as is! We love to slather on an extra layer of butter some days.
Is it unhealthy to offer my child cake?
Here's the finding that surprises most parents: putting a food off limits tends to make kids want it more. Researchers at Penn State ran two experiments with preschoolers, keeping a palatable snack food visible but out of reach during some sessions and freely available during others. When the restriction was lifted, the children went after that food harder. They paid more attention to it, chose it more often, and ate more of it than when it had not been restricted. The authors' conclusion was direct: restricting access focuses a child's attention on the restricted food and increases their desire for it, which makes it an ineffective way to encourage moderate eating.
A few years later, a research team reviewed 22 studies on parental feeding styles and children's eating. Studies examining restriction were the most likely to find a link with how much children ate and their weight.
We see this in our own practices too. Parents come to us worried their child is fixated on sweets, and the fixation often traces back to a (well-intentioned, but misplaced) rule that was meant to limit them.
This is one reason we discourage labelling foods as "good" or "bad" or making certain foods feel off limits.
Think of nutrient intake kind of like financial budgeting. Some expenses are non-negotiable: housing, groceries, utilities, etc. Once those essentials are covered, you're free to spend what's left of your paycheque on whatever you want: movies, vacations, and so on.
Nutrition works the same way. Each person gets a daily "paycheque" of calories their body can spend. Some of those calories need to go toward essential nutrients: protein, iron, calcium, and the like. Once those needs are met, a small amount is left over, and that's where foods like cake fit. The World Health Organization recommend keeping free sugars under 10% of total calories, and one square of this cake uses a small amount of that.
Healthy Applesauce Cake FAQs
Yes, absolutely. We do this often. You'll just want to double the entire recipe and it will work out just beautifully!
It could be that you overmixed the batter-for this reason, we caution against overmixing. You just want the ingredients to be folded into each other well.
If the cake is still wet in the middle, bake for longer and check on it every three minutes or so.
es! We suggest limiting to ⅓ cup and folding these add-ins at the very end. It's important to keep in mind that these foods can pose a choking risk so keep your child's age and eating ability top of mind!
Yup! Just slice into desired squares or portions, and freeze in a reusable bag. You can also wrap each cake piece in saran wrap or tin foil for added protection. You can store in your freezer for three months or longer if you have a deep freezer.
Toddler breakfast recipes
If you tried this healthy applesauce cake or any other recipe on our blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let us know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Healthy Applesauce Cake
Video
Ingredients
Wet ingredients
- ⅓ cup butter melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 medium apple cored and shredded (about 1 cup) -keep the peel on when shredding!
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Dry ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup quick oats
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup ground flax seeds
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Whisk together the wet ingredients in a large bowl.
- Measure the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet ingredients.
- Switch to a wooden spoon and fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. Be careful not to over mix.
- Allow the batter to rest for five min.
- Pour into a greased pan that is 8x8 or 9x9.
- Bake at 350°F for 30-35 minutes for a 9x9 or 40-45 minutes for a 8x8. The cake is done when the top becomes matte (instead of glossy), the edges are just starting to pull away from the pan, and a toothpick in the centre comes out with moist crumbs rather than wet batter. If you have an instant-read thermometer, look for about 200°F in the centre.
- Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing. Store leftovers in the fridge or freeze individual squares wrapped in tin foil and placed in a sealable bag or container.
