Irish Apple Cake with Custard Sauce – traditional recipe with video instructions.
I saw a recipe for Irish Apple Cake with Custard Sauce about a year ago. From the very first moment I knew I had to make it sometime. The original recipe comes from Mairéad from Irish American Mom blog. Kayley from The Kitchen McCabe added her custard sauce to make this cake complete.
I didn’t change the recipe except that I added some lemon zest to the batter (I hope Irish people will not hate me for that). And I used my own recipe for Custard Sauce. Other then that, everything else is pretty much the same as original.
One thing I was surprised about is that there is no cinnamon in the recipe. I always thought that apples and cinnamon are a match made in heaven. Irish traditionally do not put cinnamon in apple desserts. Instead, they use nutmeg and cloves. This time I did it their way, but next time I think I would ad a dash of cinnamon, nevertheless.
This is the first time I’m posting a video of baking process together with a new recipe on my blog (I made a few videos about some older recipes already published).
In all the excitement about making a video while baking Irish Apple Cake I made an incredible mistake – I forgot to take pictures of it!! The only thing I could do was to extract a snapshot from video clip. That is the reason why my photos are not as high quality as I would like them to be. I hope you’ll forgive me and just focus on the cake instead!

Irish Apple Cake with Custard Sauce - traditional recipe with video instructions
- 4 large apples (Granny Smith or Golden Delicious), peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp cloves, ground
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg, ground
- zest from 1/4 lemon
- 6 oz (70 g) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 Tbsp sugar, for sprinkling
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IRISH APPLE CAKE: In a very large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cloves, nutmeg and lemon zest.
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Add butter and cut it into the flour with two knives. (You can also use food processor for this step.)
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Add 3/4 cup sugar and mix in.
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Add apples and quickly cover in flour mixture to prevent them from browning.
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In a smaller bowl, mix eggs with milk. Add to apple mixture and stir to combine.
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Transfer the mixture into a buttered and floured 8" baking pan.
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Bake in 375 F (190 C) oven for about 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. If the top of the cake starts browning too quickly, cover it with aluminum foil.
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Take the cake out of the oven, let cool to room temperature and serve with CUSTARD SAUCE.
Recipe Video
Where’s the recipe for the custard?
You click the link saying “CUSTARD SAUCE” in the text or in the bottom of the recipe. Or click here: https://www.kitchennostalgia.com/old-english-recipes/egg-custard-sauce-recipe.html
I’d like to use green food coloring to tint the custard sauce for saint Patrick’s day.
Interesting!