The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word EASINESS
I've seen this crossword clue in The Sunday Telegraph
E
A
S
I
N
E
S
S
More clues leading to the result EASINESS
- Simplicity of sense is a hit
- Function central to each empty sports facility
- Sick feeling question avoided, it’s simple
- After each term in maths, students vacated facility
- Facility in a function held aboard English ship
- Sense is a misused facility
- Quality of piece of cake or pie found in some areas, in essence
- River is returning to loch providing simplicity
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Quality of piece of cake or pie" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case quality of piece of cake or pie = easiness.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.