This applesauce bread recipe produces a sweet “quick bread” similar to banana bread… but with a mild apple flavor. It is a very easy recipe to make and uses simple ingredients such as applesauce, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. The apple flavor & spices make this applesauce bread perfect for fall and winter holidays. However, given its great flavor & quickness to make, applesauce bread can also be used any time of the year as an easy dessert or lunch snack.
FYI – This applesauce bread can be made with or without chopped walnuts.
Sliced Applesauce Bread
“Plain” Applesauce Bread (without Nuts)
Applesauce bread is a “quick bread” (similar to banana bread and pumpkin bread). Quick breads use baking soda/powder to rise rapidly versus sandwich-type breads that use yeast which rises more slowly. In turn, the rapid rise allows quick breads to made much more quickly than sandwich-type breads (as there is no long wait for the yeast to rise). Faster to make & bake means faster into hungry tummies. Keep your kids happy!
This recipe also is very easy to make. There is no waiting for bananas to ripen. Just grab that old jar of applesauce which has been hiding in the back of your pantry and start baking!
Recipe Sections
Applesauce Bread – Straight from the Oven
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 Cups – Unsweetened Applesauce – 403 milliliters
- 1/2 Cup – Vegetable Oil – 115 milliliters – Use a neutral tasting vegetable oil such as corn or canola
- 2 – Large Eggs
- 1 Cup – Light Brown Sugar (packed cup) – 215 grams
- 2 Cups – All Purpose Flour – 240 grams
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Soda – 5 grams
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Powder – 4 grams
- 1/2 Teaspoon – Salt – 3 grams
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons – Vanilla Extract – 7.5 milliliters
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons – Ground Cinnamon – 4.5 grams
- 1/4 Teaspoon – Ground Nutmeg – 0.625 grams – I don’t use a lot of this spice as it can be overpowering
- 1 Cup – Chopped Walnuts – 115 grams – Optional Ingredient – I think this applesauce bread tastes better with chopped walnuts. However, if you do not like walnuts or someone in your family has a nut allergy, you can make a plain version of this bread. Or you can replace the nuts with another ingredient such as chocolate chips, golden raisins, etc.
Servings – Roughly 12 slices
Equipment Needed – Measuring cup & spoons, mixing bowl, long wooden spoon, 9 by 5 bread pan, oven mitts, silicon spatula, cooling rack and an oven.
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Key Ingredient – Applesauce
Optional Ingredient – Chopped Walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Lightly beat the eggs.
- Stir the applesauce, vegetable oil, eggs and brown sugar together in a large bowl. FYI – Mixing in the brown sugar now helps to completely blend the sugar and allows you to spot any hard sugar lumps (that are easy to smash with a fork).
- Mix in remaining ingredients (except the optional chopped walnuts). Stir until the batter is fully mixed. Don’t overmix.
- Optional – Stir chopped walnuts into the batter.
- Pour the finished batter into a nonstick bread pan. Smooth out the top of the batter within the bread pan.
- Optional – Sprinkle some chopped walnuts on top of the batter for an even “nuttier” appearance.
- Place the bread pan in the oven. Try to center the bread pan in the middle of the oven for the best results. Wear oven mitts.
- Bake in the oven for 60-65 minutes or until golden brown.
- Take bread pan out of the oven and let the applesauce bread cool down in the bread pan for 10 minutes. Use oven mitts as the bread pan will be very hot coming out of the oven.
- Do not remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan during this 10 minute cool down period. This finishes the baking process.
- After 10 minutes, remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan. Place the applesauce bread on a wire cooling rack in order to completely cool. This cool down may take 1-2 hours. Gently slide a silicon spatula between the applesauce bread and the bread pan walls if the applesauce bread is stuck in the pan.
- Please read the tips section below for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully & to avoid common quick bread problems.
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Related Bread Dad Sections
- Bread Machine Recipes
- Bread Recipes – Oven baked, etc.
- Banana Bread Recipes
- Cookie Recipes
- Sweet “Quick Bread” Recipes
Tips
- The tips below are designed to help quick bread “novices” and/or people with limited baking experience.
- Click on our “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include our tips section. Please read the tips section in order to avoid common recipe problems.
- Do not add the optional chopped walnuts if anyone who might eat this applesauce bread has peanut and/or tree nut allergies. Always be aware of potential food allergies of friends, family & guests when serving quick breads.
- Despite the 1 3/4 cups of applesauce used in this recipe, this applesauce bread has only a mild apple flavor. See the dried apple chips tip below if you want to add more apple flavor. Moreover, some people like to sauté (cook in a frying pan) small apple cubes for more flavor but this can throw off the moisture content of the recipe & could leave the applesauce bread undercooked.
- Be aware that packaged applesauce can vary greatly in the amount of apple flavor. This is one of the reasons that we have added spices to this recipe. Some packaged applesauces have very little apple flavor – just tons of sugar.
- Optional – If you want to add more apple flavor to this applesauce bread recipe, you can add 1/4 cup of chopped up dried apple chips. Chop the dried apples into tiny bits.
- Do not eliminate the brown sugar from this recipe because the slight acidity of brown sugar helps to activate the baking soda (and baking soda helps the bread to rise). If the baking soda is not activated properly, the applesauce bread will not rise properly and/or you might find some of the baking soda (which is a little bitter) leftover in the applesauce bread.
- Optional – As I stated in the ingredient section, if you do not like walnuts or someone in your family has a nut allergy, you can make a plain version of this bread. Just eliminate the cup of chopped walnuts when making this applesauce bread. Or you can replace the walnuts with another ingredient such as chocolate chips, raisins, dried cranberries, etc.
- You should use a NEUTRAL flavored vegetable oil (i.e. corn or canola oil) in order to make this applesauce bread recipe. Stronger flavored oils (i.e. peanut oil or olive oil) may negatively impact the applesauce bread taste.
- You can also use unsalted butter instead of vegetable oil if you want to add a slightly buttery taste to your applesauce bread. Just replace the oil with butter on a 1:1 basis.
- However, I find that vegetable oil creates a slightly moister quick bread because vegetable oil stays liquid at room temperature (whereas butter is a solid at room temperature).
- This applesauce bread recipe uses UNSWEETENED applesauce. This allows for better control of the sweetness of the applesauce bread. Depending on the manufacturer, sweetened applesauce can vary greatly in the amounts of sugar contained in each cup. This can throw off the overall sweetness of the bread dramatically and make things much too sweet. I recommend that you use unsweetened applesauce in order to get much more consistent results.
- In case, you are looking for the best applesauce to use when making this applesauce bread recipe, you might be interested in reading the applesauce “reviews” below.
- Epicurious – The Best Applesauce You Can Buy at the Store
- The Mercury News – Taste-Off: The best flavored applesauce — and the awful ones
- Be aware that almost all quick breads (i.e. applesauce bread and banana bread) have some small cracks on the top of their crusts due to the rapid rise of the baking soda/powder. Part of the “charm” of sweet & delicious quick breads!
- If you liked this applesauce bread, you might want to also try out our Applesauce Cranberry Bread. Perfect for fall & winter holidays.
- Do not overmix the batter or your applesauce bread will come out dense and gummy. I never use an an electric mixer when making applesauce bread. It is too easy to overmix the batter with an electric mixer. Stick with a large spoon when mixing your batter.
- Use FRESH ingredients (i.e. baking soda and flour) for the best results. For example, if you use stale baking soda and/or baking powder, your quick bread will not rise properly and will be too dense. Baking soda & powder is best if used within 6 months of opening the container. Using baking soda from an open container (that has been deodorizing your refrigerator for months) will lead to subpar results. Old & hard baking soda/powder may result in rising problems and/or leave small bitter clumps in your quick bread.
- This doesn’t happen often but if the top of the applesauce bread looks too moist or under cooked, you should try the “toothpick test”. Gently push a wooden toothpick or wooden skewer into the top of the bread and see if any batter sticks to the toothpick. If batter is sticking to the toothpick then it hasn’t completely cooked. Place the bread pan back into the still hot oven for another 3 to 5 minutes. Make sure to wear oven gloves because the bread pan will be very hot. After the 3 to 5 minutes, remove the bread pan and test the quick bread again with a toothpick.
- Instead of the “toothpick test”, some people like to use a bread thermometer to test if their applesauce bread is done. Generally, a quick bread is done when the internal temperature reaches 200-205 degrees F. For more on using a thermometer to test your quick bread, you might like to read this King Arthur Baking article.
- To prevent your quick breads from sticking to the bottom of your bread pan, you should consider either “greasing” the bottom of the pan with butter or vegetable oil, using a cooking spray, using a nonstick pan or lining the interior of the bread pan with baking parchment paper.
- However, don’t grease the bread pan near the top of the pan. There will be nothing for batter to cling to as it rises. This could cause the bread top to collapse as it rises.
- Please use the suggested 9 x 5 bread pan to make this applesauce bread recipe. If you start using different sized pans, there is a greater potential for bread top collapses (potentially less bread pan “wall” support for the quick bread as it rises), different interior batter to exterior bread ratios (thus the need for different baking time lengths), smaller pans are more likely to overflow, etc.
- Make sure that your oven has been completely preheated. If the oven has not been properly preheated, this quick bread could come out undercooked. Use an oven thermometer (i.e. one that hangs inside your oven) to check the interior oven temperature before baking.
- If you have a problem with a quick bread recipe, please make sure that you are following the recipe exactly (i.e. using the correct oven temperature), using the correct amounts of ingredients (i.e. don’t eyeball the measurements versus using a measuring cup or accidentally add a tablespoon when a teaspoon is called for), using the correct ingredients (i.e. baking soda/powder versus yeast or all purpose flour versus bread flour), etc. Please don’t “wing” things with recipes.
- Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with a hot oven and bread pan.
- For more quick bread ideas (i.e. pumpkin cranberry bread, blueberry quick bread, banana nut bread or bread machine gingerbread), please visit Bread Dad’s main Quick Bread Recipes section.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. Beginning bakers learn a lot from your baking comments, tips & recipe variations. Jump to comment section
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- Bread Machines – My favorites!
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- Quick Bread Cookbooks – Banana bread, etc.
Reference Sources
- Wikipedia, Applesauce
- Wikipedia, Quick Bread
Applesauce Bread Recipe
This applesauce bread recipe produces a sweet "quick bread" similar to banana bread… but with a mild apple flavor. Visit Bread Dad (BreadDad.com) for more easy quick bread recipes (i.e. banana bread and pumpkin bread).
Servings: 12 slices
Calories: 320kcal
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 Cups Unsweetened Applesauce – 403 milliliters
- 1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil – 115 milliliters – Use a neutral tasting vegetable oil such as corn or canola
- 2 Eggs (large)
- 1 Cup Light Brown Sugar (packed cup) – 215 grams
- 2 Cups All Purpose Flour – 240 grams
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda – 5 grams
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder – 4 grams
- 1/2 Teaspoon Salt – 3 grams
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract – 7.5 milliliters
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon – 4.5 grams
- 1/4 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg – 0.625 grams – I don't use a lot of this spice as it can be overpowering
- 1 Cup Chopped Walnuts – 115 grams – Optional Ingredient – I think this applesauce bread tastes better with chopped walnuts. However, if you do not like walnuts or someone in your family has a nut allergy, you can make a plain version of this bread. Or you can replace the nuts with another ingredient such as chocolate chips, golden raisins, etc.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Lightly beat the eggs.
- Stir the applesauce, vegetable oil, eggs and brown sugar together in a large bowl. FYI – Mixing in the brown sugar now helps to completely blend the sugar and allows you to spot any hard sugar lumps (that are easy to smash with a fork).
- Mix in remaining ingredients (except the optional chopped walnuts). Stir until the batter is fully mixed. Don't overmix.
- Optional – Stir chopped walnuts into the batter.
- Pour the finished batter into a nonstick bread pan. Smooth out the top of the batter within the bread pan.
- Optional – Sprinkle some chopped walnuts on top of the batter for an even "nuttier" appearance.
- Place the bread pan in the oven. Try to center the bread pan in the middle of the oven for the best results. Wear oven mitts.
- Bake in the oven for 60-65 minutes or until golden brown.
- Take bread pan out of the oven and let the applesauce bread cool down in the bread pan for 10 minutes. Use oven mitts as the bread pan will be very hot coming out of the oven.
- Do not remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan during this 10 minute cool down period. This finishes the baking process.
- After 10 minutes, remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan. Place the applesauce bread on a wire cooling rack in order to completely cool. This cool down may take 1-2 hours. Gently slide a silicon spatula between the applesauce bread and the bread pan walls if the applesauce bread is stuck in the pan.
- Please read the tips section on Bread Dad for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully & to avoid common quick bread problems.
Notes
This recipe includes optional chopped walnuts as an ingredient. Do not serve chopped walnuts to anyone with potential nut or peanut allergies. Nuts can be a potential choking hazard. Do not serve food with nuts to young children.
This is a Bread Dad recipe and may not be copied or reproduced. Material on this website is copyright protected under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Legal Disclaimer
Nutrition estimate based on including the optional chopped walnuts. The nutritional information is provided using recipe tools such as WP Recipe Maker. These figures should only be considered as an estimate. They should not be construed as a guarantee of accuracy given visitors may use different serving sizes, ingredients, etc. See our legal disclaimer for additional nutrition disclosures.
Nutrition
Serving: 1slice | Calories: 320kcal | Carbohydrates: 40g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 17g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Cholesterol: 27mg | Sodium: 240mg | Potassium: 128mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 22g | Vitamin A: 53IU | Vitamin C: 0.5mg | Calcium: 56mg | Iron: 2mg
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