I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to give much simpler gifts for this holiday season. Because of that I’ve done a LOT of baking, including using my recipe for applesauce raisin bread. The original was taken from a Betty Crocker Bisquick Cookbook, but I wanted to use regular flour instead of Bisquick. My original post for this included some adjustments but I wasn’t very clear. So, after some experimentation on my part I wanted to post the revised — and fully tested — recipe.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup salt-free butter
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 cup raisins
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup wheat bran
1 tablespoon oat bran
Start heating the oven to 350 degrees well in advance — you want a hot oven, not just hot air in the oven. Thoroughly grease a 9″x5″x3″ loaf pan and then dust with flour. Cream the butter and sugar together. Once it is well mixed (the color will lighten if you use brown sugar) add the eggs one at a time. Beat this mixture until it is light and fluffy. Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices together. Add the wheat bran to this mix. Reduce the speed on your mixer to low and start adding some of the flour mix, no more than 1/3 of it. Add about 1/3 cup of applesauce to the flour mix and then more flour and then more applesauce until all of the flour mix and applesauce has been mixed together. Increase speed of blender to a medium speed and blend for about 1 to 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add the raisins. Blend just until they are mixed. Pour the mix into the loaf pan. Sprinkle the oat bran on top of the loaf. Cook for about one hour (it takes 1 hour 5 minutes in my oven). Remove when a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let it cool in the loaf pan for at least 5 minutes before turning it out.
This has been a very popular gift item along with my Banana Bread recipe. Both are health and tasty. What better combination could there be?
