Spiced Applesauce Bread

This is one of the best and one of the most reliable recipes in my repertoire. I've been making it for absolutely ever and the tweaks I do are for variety and it's so easy because the recipe is so versatile. Over the years, I've substituted soy or almond milk for the milk required and I've switched up the applesauce and switched up the cereal. Instead of applesauce I've used pumpkin pulp (which is EXTRA yummy) and I've also used kinda dead pears or bananas and mashed them up (and I once tried avacado, but it was just not my thing). In lieu of Fiber One cereal I've used any kind of hearty whole-grain cereal and yesterday I actually used frosted shredded wheat cause I thought we had bran cereal but we didn't and it was the only cereal we had in the house ;-) My husband doesn't really like raisins, so I haven't used them in the recipe for a decade and he doesn't like nuts but I gotta tell you, there is nothing more delicious than some coarsely chopped walnuts up in this baby.

Spiced Applesauce Bread

• ½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
• ¾ cup Fiber One cereal
• 1¾ cups Gold Medal all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup applesauce
• ½ cup milk
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg or 2 egg whites (or ¼ cup cholesterol-free egg product)
• ½ cup raisins

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9 by 5 by 3 inch loaf pan.

Crush cereal and place it, with the brown sugar, at the bottom of a mixing bowl.

Sift all dry ingredients together at one time in to the mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients and stir. Crack and egg in to the batter and stir until fully incorporated.  Pour batter in to the greased loaf pan and spread the top so it's pretty and even.

The original instructions say to "bake 55 to 65 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean". I always check at 60 minutes but it normally takes about another 20 minutes to cook.

The instructions say to "cool completely before slicing". I've never been able to wait that long.

When I don't care about calories and want to make this extra special, I take a tablespoon of butter and rub it over the top of the loaf to make it extra moist and then take a spoon of regular sugar and sprinkle that over the top for a glistening presentation.

I've never stored the rest of the loaf in an air-tight container and I've never gone out of my way to wrap it up overnight. I generally just throw a tea-towel over the top of the loaf pan and keep the remainder in a cool space.