Walking on Wednesday - Rainy Day Recipe Day! Apple Bread

Due to the frequency of rain in the area lately, this week's Walking on Wednesday is a wonderful rainy day activity. Baking! Often, on rainy days, I find myself in the kitchen. I don't have the itchy 'gotta be outside' feeling, and the hubby and kids are always hungry it seems, so baking and cooking are a natural rainy day activity.  


On a recent rainy day, I was on a bread making kick. My hubby cannot eat dairy - no butter, milk, cheese. But he loves sweet breads. I searched high and low for a banana bread recipe with no milk or butter. Not easy to find, but I did find one. But how much banana bread can one eat before one gets so tired of banana bread they don't want to see another banana? Not much actually....


So, some experimenting and desire to use up some ingredients, I came up with a recipe for Apple Bread that uses no butter or milk. It is a heavy bread, nice and moist, just the way hubby likes it.  

Flour, baking powder, salt mixture

Ingredients:                                

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Sift these together in a separate bowl

Apples, cut up - I used small Granny Smith

2 cups apple sauce (chunky or not, doesn't matter)

2 apples, cut into small bits

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

cinnamon, to taste

'wet' mixture

In a mixing bowl, combine the apple sauce, apples, eggs, and sugar. Add enough cinnamon to your liking, and mix. Sorry, I have never measured the cinnamon, I just add what I think in enough.

Final mixture, and bread pan on the left

Once the wet mixture is mixed, add the flour mixture. Mix until just mixed, over mixing may cause the bread to be tough.
You can fold in Walnuts at this time if you like Walnuts. 
Hubby does not like them, so I don't add them.

Ready for the oven

Then pour into a bread pan. If you are using a glass or metal bread pan, you will need to flour the pan so it does not stick. I am lucky enough to have a terracotta bread pan, so I don't need to flour the pan.








Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 1 hour and 5 minutes. Check by sticking a knife down the middle. You may have to cook a little longer if it is still too wet, a little less if your oven is a really hot 350 degrees. 

Done!

I check often, and put in for about 2-3 minutes at a time after the first hour until I figure it is done, when the top is a nice deep brown. Remember, this is a heavy bread, so it still may seem a little wet, but it is cooked.
Let cool, cut and enjoy!


I have played around with some other fruit combinations, always with about 4 cups of fruit. The Banana-Apple Bread uses 2 ripe bananas and 2 apples, the plain Banana Bread uses 4 bananas - mashed, the Blueberry Bread uses 4 cups of blueberries - mashed, the Apple-Pear uses 2 apples and 2 cups of canned pears - mashed, etc.  The rest of the ingredients remain the same, the cooking time may vary a few minutes depending on the moistness of the fruit. 
All turn out YUMMY! And all are great with a cup of tea.
And using a mug cozy just makes it even more, well, cozy, on a rainy day. 

4th of July Mug Cozy - new to Raige Creations