Gâteau invisible originating from France, is a tasty pie with lots of layers of apple that held well together with only a bit of cake batter
This recipe is baked without butter, with olive oil, crispy caramelized outside and soft and fluffy inside.
Do you often lose the paper with your notes of a cake you’ve tried and that ended good enough to want to bake it again… if you could find the post-it of course? All the time for me even if I’ve had for the past 2 years a notebook where I write the ingredients of what I cook, in case I want to share the recipe here with you. Even though I keep quickly writing quantities on post-it, back of envelope, shopping list…
Luckily I had given the recipe of this olive oil cake to a colleague at the office and the other day she brought the cake she baked at the office and showed me the post-it I thought I had lost! I simply had given it to her, no wonder I couldn’t find it anymore!
Anyway I was able to bake again this cake without butter but with olive oil instead, brown sugar and wholemeal flour. A delight. I added tons of thin slices of apple to make kind of an invisible cake. The perfect cake I promise. Invisible cakes are quite trendy in France at the moment.
My little trick for an ultra-gourmet twist, I coat the mold with brown sugar which gives a caramelized crust to the cake. Crispy outside and soft and fluffy inside.
I suggest here the recipe for 6 in a cake mold or for 4 in a soufflé mold for a pretty round cake as on the photos.
Some information on the recipe
- Olive oil is the base of this cake as I wanted a dairy-free dessert and knew that olive oil works well in pastry. It’s not that common in France to bake cakes without using butter. Dairies are indeed everywhere in pastry.
- A semi-wholemeal flour, ideally choose T80, or T65. Spelled flour which has very digestible gluten is also perfect. The cake can of course be bakes with all-purpose flour.
- Brown sugar which makes cakes so tasty (as for flour, eventually granulated sugar)
- Cinnamon, goes well with apples and lower the taste of olive oil
- Baking soda: I prefer a mix of baking soda and baking powder as baking soda makes preparations more digest, and the cakes very fluffy.
- Apples I choose a variety we use a lot in France in baking : Chantecler, which is cross between the American Golden Delicious and the French Reinette Clochard. It keeps well like the Golden Delicious but is not too crisp. The acid and sugar content is very balanced, making it ideal for both eating fresh and baking. You may choose other varieties of apple such as fuji, honeycrisp, ambrosia or pink lady.
- For a gourmet touch, coat the bottom and the edges of the greased mold (butter or oil to remain 100% dairy-free) with brown sugar before pouring your dough. In classic molds of course, if not, quickly in an ungreased silicone mold is my home cooking habit.
- For a smaller cake as on the photos, I used a soufflé mold with the following quantities for 4 shares: 2 eggs, 95 g of flour, 60 g of brown sugar, 40 ml of olive oil, cinnamon and baking powder / baking soda, 3 large or 4 small apples.
French Invisible Apple Cake, dairy free
Equipment
- Loaf mold
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 150 gr flour idealy semi wholemeal
- 90 gr brown sugar or granulated sugar
- 60 ml olive oil
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon or 2!
- 5 apples
Optional for the mold
- brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C / 350°F.
- Vigorously whisk eggs and brown sugar.
- Add the dry powders: flour, cinnamon and mix of baking powder and baking soda. Combine.
- Finally add the olive oil, combine again.
- Peel and remove core of apples and cut them into thin strips.
- Add the apples to the cake batter, gently combine.
- Use a silicone mold that don’t need to be greased or grease your cake pan with oil or butter, then lightly coat with flour.
- Optional If you opt for the crispy caramelized crust, do not flour the mold but pour 1 to 2 tablespoons of brown sugar into the greased pan, tap so that it sticks to the bottom and all around the sides.
- Pour the pastry dough, tap so that the apple slices are flat and bake at 180 °C / 350°F for about 40 minutes, check if it is baked with a sharp knife, it should come out dry.
Notes
1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda or 1 sachet of 11gr of baking powder