Applesauce Spice Loaf

Way back - in my 4-H days - one of the recipes in the cooking project we took on was Applesauce Spice Loaf.    I remember it being absolutely delicious.  I reviewed the recipe and decided to make some changes.  I don't recommend making the same changes.  Add the full cup of raisins.  (I boil raisins for a few minutes before adding them to any recipe.  They end up plump and juicy.)  Want to know what I would change? I'd double the spices.  Possibly add in some allspice, maybe even a half-teaspoon of black pepper for a weird kick.  None the less, it was nice to revisit this old friend from the 70's.  (Interestingly, this was about the same time that Canada was implementing the metric system.  All of the 4-H cooking workbooks used metric exclusively.  Seems that things went differently than they expected.)

Applesauce Spice Loaf

125 ml (1/2 cup) butter

250 ml (1 cup) sugar
2 eggs, beaten
125 ml (1/2 cup) chopped nuts
250 ml (1 cup) chopped raisins
500 ml (2 cups) sifted flour*
5 ml (1 tsp) baking soda
5 ml (1 tsp) cinnamon
2.5 ml (1/2 tsp) nutmeg
25p ml (1 cup) unsweetened applesauce

 Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add nuts and raisins.  Sift dry ingredients together.  Add alternately with applesauce to creamed mixture.  Bake at 180º c (350º f) for 60-65 minutes.

* The 4H recipes were tricky.  If you’re not actually going to sift the flour before you measure it, take out 2 tbsp of flour from each 1 cup measure.  It seems as if they wanted to drive home the need to pre-sift.

 

Enjoy!