This Ginger Apple Loaf Cake is fruity and sweet cake – perfect for chilly yet sunny days or a weekend with friends and family. After all apple, ginger and fudge are just a perfect combination in a cake! An easy apple loaf to make at home. Perfect for Fall bakes and Autumn baking. A family favourite easy recipe perfect for all ages. A great bonfire night cake too!

I absolutely love the Autumn thanks to all the winter spices like ground ginger, mixed spice and cinnamon. After all, they aren’t exactly summer flavours! I use them tons in baking – especially warming, spiced cakes – even better if fruit is involved!
This apple cinnamon loaf cake is so moreish and really does feel like autumn in each slice. It’s actually really quick and simple to mix up the batter, so you don’t need to worry if you’re a baking novice – no fear here!
Plus, Autumn is a great time for apples, which go perfectly with all of these spices! It would be silly not to combine the two. And so, this Ginger Apple Loaf Cake was born! It’s perfect for cold, dark evenings and tastes the way Bonfire night feels – like a warming celebration!
Turn this into a toffee apple loaf cake
Want to make this loaf even better? Try adding some fudge pieces! It is super simple to add them in before adding the mix into the loaf tin to bake. It adds a different type of sweetness to the finish bake.
The autumn cake is great cold, but even better warm with a cup of tea. After all, what sort of cake isn’t better with a nice hot mug of tea? I challenge you to think of one! Nobody in my house can refuse this cake – it’s gone practically the second it comes out of the oven!

Another fun fact: the basket in these photos was a car boot sale find at only £2! It makes a lovely picnic basket and I’ll definitely be using it all year round!
What ingredients do I need to make this apple loaf cake?
None of the ingredients are difficult to find, but you might need to make some substitutions if you can’t find them all so it’s definitely useful to pay attention to this part!
- Large cooking apples – I like bramley apples here, although if you prefer Granny Smith apples then they work brilliantly too! This bramley apple loaf cake has such a brilliant taste from this apple variety. You can either peel and chop the apples or you can grate the apple in once peeled. If you grate it squeeze out liquid before adding it to the mixture. A grated apple loaf cake gives a consistent level of apple throughout and will help create a moist apple loaf cake.
- Regular eating apples – I like royal gala, but you can use whatever your favourite is!
- A few tablespoons of lemon juice – fresh squeezed is always better, but no worries if you only have bottled – it isn’t the end of the world by any stretch!
- Unsalted butter. It’s worth shelling out for butter instead of margarine here even if you do typically use margarine – butter is best!
- Soft light brown sugar – not dark brown sugar or granulated sugar. Each one has a different moisture level, which can affect the final cake so it’s important to use light brown sugar so that it’s not too dry or too soggy.
- 4 medium eggs – don’t use large here. The different size will affect the final cake quite dramatically so it’s worth buying medium eggs even if you typically use large ones!
- Self-raising flour. You can substitute plain flour and extra baking powder, but most people usually have self-raising flour so hopefully it won’t be necessary in your case!
- Baking powder to make sure that the cake rises properly and isn’t too dense or hard. After all, nobody likes an overly dense cake!
- Mixed spice – if you can’t find any then use an even blend of nutmeg and cinnamon to recreate the flavour.
- Ground ginger. This is a pretty key ingredient, so it’s best to avoid trying to replace it with fresh ginger or any other substitutes!
- Fudge pieces – these are usually found in the baking aisle with the chocolate chips at most supermarkets.
- Granulated sugar to sprinkle on top once it’s cool – which, of course, is strictly optional!
So nothing too rare – it just looks like a lot! You should already have most things and be able to find the rest fairly easily.
Now, on to the method!

What Equipment do I need?
Another great thing about this moist Apple Loaf Cake is that you really don’t need lots of equipment.
This equipment list contains affiliate links;
2Lb loaf tin – I like this from Tala. It’s a good brand and affordable too.
Loaf tin liners – these are great for making loafs and easily getting them out of the tin once baked.
Peeler – for the apples
Large mixing bowl – I love mason cash bowls so they will also be recommended from me.
Stand mixer – I always choose KitchenAid as I love mine but there are many other stand mixers available.
Kitchen scales – so incredibly useful for baking.
What substitutions can I make?
This recipe is brilliantly adaptable. You can add substitute a few ingredients really easily.
GINGER
I use ground ginger for this recipe but you could add in grated fresh ginger or even thinly sliced preserved ginger to add extra spice. An apple and ginger loaf is such a wonderful combination of flavours.
CHOCOLATE
Apple and chocolate loaf might sound a bit odd but it certainly is delicious. Just before putting the mix into the loaf tin to bake you could add 100g of your favourite chocolate chips.
GLUTEN-FREE APPLE LOAF
This recipe can easily be turned gluten-free by removing the flour and replacing it with 275g of gluten-free flour. I recommend Dove’s farm flour as I have tried it with that brand. It might need a little more or less depending on the flour density.
It is also easy to find gluten-free baking powder in supermarkets too.
APPLES
Grating the apples or chopping them – A grated apple loaf cake gives a consistent level of apple throughout and will help create a moist apple loaf cake. If you leave it chunky you get a nicer proportion of cake to apple bites. Both work and work are delicious.
If you don’t have Bramley apples you can easily replace them with regular eating apples.
CINNAMON
Add in extra cinnamon to turn this recipe into a Ginger and cinnamon loaf cake. Ginger and cinnamon are possibly two of my most favourite flavours so this always gets my vote. This isn’t like the ginger loaf cake by Nigella but is a lighter bake and one that I’m sure you will come back to!
Recipes with bramley apples
Bramley apples are possibly one of the most underrated cooking ingredients. They are chunky and tasty. Of course not raw but that doesn’t matter for this cinnamon apple loaf. Unlike regular apples, Bramley apples are larger and pretty sour until cooked. They are a perfect ingredient for a crumble and of course cake!
Bramley apples can be grated or chopped or mashed down for different recipes. At Christmas I make apple sauce out of mine, I also love making cranberry crumble with them too.
For this recipe, you don’t need to cook the Bramley apples before use. You only need thinly slice and mix in. As the apple loaf cake cooks in the oven the apple will cook. The sweet batter will also help reduce some of the sourness too.
Looking for other Bramley apple recipes? Try these…
Christmas Crumble with oat topping
Autumn Apple and Blackberry Cake
Christmas Apple and Cinnamon Bundt Cake
How do I make this autumn Apple Cake?
The method is actually pretty easy despite the intimidating-looking list of ingredients! So long as you follow these simple instructions on how to make this easy apple cake, you shouldn’t have a problem!
- Line 2 loaf tins and preheat the oven. You can use liners or cut greaseproof paper to fit.
- Cream together butter and sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy or by hand if you don’t have a mixer.
- Add the eggs one at a time and mix in on low speed.
- Sift the flour and baking powder into the mix and gently mix them in.
- Peel and chop the apples into small chunks and sprinkle over the lemon juice, blotting off any excess juice with kitchen paper.
- Fold in the apple pieces and add the mixture to the loaf tins (with half the mixture in each)
- Bake until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean then leave to cool on a wire rack.
- Sprinkle with granulated sugar once cool if you like.
Nothing too complicated!
Why do you put lemon juice on apples?
If you’re wondering why I’ve used the lemon juice on the apples, then it’s just to avoid the apple pieces browning after you chop them. It’s mostly superficial, but it just makes them look prettier in the finished apple loaf cake! It also adds a touch of acid to the cake which helps the texture of the cake and apples develop properly as it bakes.
The gorgeous and photogenic Autumn Cake ready to be taken to an Autumn picnic.

Apple Ginger Loaf for Autumn
Happy Autumn! This is a great apple ginger loaf to make and smells wonderful when cooking and when eating too. I love the sugar on the top to add a slight crunch to the final bake. I love Autumn for the delicious fruit to use in my bakes. The mix of apple and ginger really does make me think of Autumn and the start of using richer spices as winter and Christmas approaches. You really can’t go wrong with this ginger and apple loaf cake.
How long does the apple loaf cake last? How do I store a loaf cake?
Storing a ginger apple loaf cake is very similar to how you would store a regular cake. Keep it in an air tight container in a cool place. The loaf cake will last about 3 days up to 5 days if you don’t eat it all at once.
Serving Suggestions
This apple loaf cake is so good on its own but there definitely a few ways you can add to the fun of eating it.
When it’s still warm I have tried it with custard – it turned it from a bake into a dessert and was very good indeed. The same goes for ice cream. It melts over the hot apples and how wonderful is that.
If this going to be served for an Autumn afternoon tea for example a dusting of icing sugar makes it look picture perfect.
Other easy Autumn recipes you might like
Blackberry Cake with ginger
Slow Cooked Venison Sausage Casserole
Pin the ginger apple loaf cake for later




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Ginger Apple Loaf Cake
Equipment
- 2lb Loaf tin
- loaf tin liners
Ingredients
- 2 (2) cooking apples
- 3 (3) regular eating apples (I used Royal Gala)
- 2 tablespoons (2 tablespoons) lemon juice
- 250 grams (1.1 cups) unsalted butter
- 250 grams (1.14 cups) light brown soft sugar
- 4 (4) medium eggs
- 250 grams (2 cups) self-raising flour
- 2 teaspoons (2 teaspoons) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) mixed spice (nutmeg and cinnamon)
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) ground ginger
- 100 grams (0.5 cups) fudge pieces (I got mine from Sainsburys)
- 2 tablespoons (2 tablespoons) granulated sugar (sprinkle when cool)
Instructions
- Line 2 x 2lb loaf tins with liners and preheat the oven to 180ºC/160º fan.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. You can do this in a stnad mixer or by hand in a mixing bowl.
- Add the eggs one a time and mix in.
- Sieve the flour and baking powder in to the mix and gently stir it in.
- Add the spices and fudge pieces and gently fold into the mixture.
- Peel and chop the apples in to small 1cm size chunks.
- Sprinkle on the lemon juice and using kitchen paper blot off any excess juice.
- Mix into the cake mixture and divide evenly between the two loaf tins.
- Pop into the oven and bake for 40-55 minutes until golden brown and until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
- You can serve it warm or cold. Both taste great.
Notes
Nutrition
Please note that the nutrition information provided above is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
Yummy this looks quite delicious, I will save this recipe for later cooking xxx
thank you so much. I hope you like it! I’m pretty sure you will x
This sounds (and looks) so fantastic. What a great idea, and mix of ingredients! A perfect autumnal cake.
Thank you so much Sarah! You are so kind and have made my day x
This sounds DELICIOUS. So many wonderful tastes of autumn in one cake. I love autumn so much, the promise of crisp days and cosy evenings. This fits perfectly!
Thank you Sarah. I love it too! They best time of year. I can’t wait for it get a little cold so we can start having country walks and then an evening next to fire at a country pub.
Oh the cake sounds diiiiiivine! The flavours within really make A/W a little more worthwhile, a slice of that cake and a cup of tea would be perfect!
x
Thank you so much! I love it with a cup of tea in the autumn sunshine. I really want to make it for fireworks night too.
I love the Autumn time too! Pinning this for it has to be made – perfect Autumn combo. 🙂
Thank you so much Sarah. I love it so much. I wish I had time this weekend to make it again. Oh well all the ingredients are ready for when I am 🙂
What an absolute bargain that basket was! The cake looks so yummy and I LOVE that combination of flavours – so perfect for autumn/winter!
Absolute bargain! It is so useful and I love it. Thank you so much. It was delicious x
This cake looks absolutely incredible, I love anything with fudge in it so may have to give making this a go! Just had a look at a few of your other recipes and they all look delicious too x
Thank you so much. They are a labour of love and a tasty labour indeed x
Just made your cake, absolutely gorgeous, great recipe, thank you.
Thank you so much for letting me know. That is so great to hear.
Always happy to have a new apple receipe. I particularly like how the fudge pieces turn into carmel swirls in the sponge.
I’m so glad you liked it! x
It sounds wonderful and I love the flavours in it! I love these kind of fruity spiced cakes.
I agree fruity spices are just the best!
Great recipe, I love the simplicity of a good loaf cake – apple and ginger is always a winning combination of flavours for me.
I couldn’t agree more! They are so simple and utterly delicious.
Fudgy? Tick. Apple? Tick. Ginger? Tick. Cake? Tick. Need I say more?
Two great minds agree on this!
I love the combination of apple and ginger and this is a nice simple recipe for everyday cake eating!
Very simple yet absolutely delicious too.
Can’t go wrong with a simple but delicious loaf cake!
I agree!
Love these flavours, perfect for Autumn. And I love loaf cakes, they’re so underrated!
I agree. More loaf cakes please!
So many of my favourite flavours in this cake! 😀
Thank you Eb. It smells amazing when baking but also tastes wonderful too.
Oh my goodness me, what lovely idea for a recipe some fantastic flavours here and I’d never have thought to put them all together.
You are too kind x