This applesauce bread recipe is delicious & easy to make. It combines sweet applesauce with slightly tangy cranberries in order to create a wonderful snack or dessert.
As you probably know, applesauce bread is a type of sweet “quick bread”. Quick breads use baking soda and/or baking powder as a leavening agent (versus sandwich-type breads that use slow rising yeast). Quick breads are usually a sweeter muffin-like “bread” that is often eaten as a dessert. Other types of sweet quick breads include banana bread, cornbread, strawberry bread, pumpkin bread, etc.
Moist & Delicious Applesauce Bread
Applesauce is often used as an easy substitute if someone has run out of bananas and is unable to make a banana bread. The lack of available bananas encourages people to try out applesauce bread recipes (which are very similar to banana breads… well except the banana part!). Moreover, since applesauce usually comes in a sealed container, it can be stored for far longer than fresh bananas. Therefore, applesauce is often more readily available as a pantry “backup” ingredient versus driving to the supermarket for bananas… in the middle of a snowstorm. Of course, people tend to forget about any missing bananas… after they discover how good applesauce bread tastes!
A Key Ingredient – Applesauce
This easy applesauce bread recipe should take you roughly 10 minutes to prepare and clean up. Please be aware that this is an oven-baked recipe. It is not made with a bread machine. For more quick bread ideas, please visit our section on Easy Quick Bread Recipes. You will also find a printable and “pin-able” recipe at the bottom of this page. If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below and give us a 5 star rating.
Ingredients – Easy Applesauce Bread Recipe
- 8 Tablespoons – Unsalted Butter (softened) – 115 grams
- 2 – Large Eggs
- 1 1/4 Cups – Applesauce – 290 milliliters
- 2 Cups – Flour (all purpose flour) – 240 grams
- 1 Cup – White Granulated Sugar – 200 grams
- 1/4 Cup – Light Brown Sugar (packed cup) – 54 grams
- 1 1/2 Cups – Cranberries (fresh) – 150 grams
- 1 Teaspoon – Vanilla Extract – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Soda – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Powder (aluminum free) – 5 milliliters
- 1/2 Teaspoon – Salt – 2.5 milliliters
Servings – Roughly 12 slices
Equipment – Measuring cup & spoons, mixing bowl, long wooden spoon, 9 by 5 bread pan, oven mitts, silicon spatula, cooling rack and an oven.
Stir Cranberries into the Applesauce Bread Batter
Instructions – Easy Applesauce Bread Recipe
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Soften butter in a microwave.
- Stir eggs, applesauce and butter together.
- Mix in remaining ingredients (except the cranberries). Stir until the batter is fully mixed.
- Add the cranberries after the batter has been completely mixed. Make sure the cranberries are evenly spread throughout the batter.
- Grease bread pan (if necessary).
- Pour finished batter into a nonstick bread pan. Smooth out the top of the batter within the bread pan.
- Bake in the oven for 65-70 minutes or until golden brown.
- Take out of oven and let the applesauce bread cool down in the bread pan for 10 minutes. Do not remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan during this 10 minute cool down period. Use oven mitts as the bread pan will be very hot coming out of the oven.
- After 10 minutes, remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan. Place the applesauce bread on a 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 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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Pour Applesauce Bread Batter into Bread Pan
Tips – Easy Applesauce Bread Recipe
- The tips below are designed to help quick bread “novices” and/or people with limited baking experience.
- Applesauce breads tend to have only a mild apple flavor. If you want more of apple flavor, you can try using a “chunky” applesauce. The applesauce chunks provide localized areas of concentrated apple flavor.
- Use fresh cranberries for the best results. Using frozen cranberries can have the problem of adding extra moisture and this can throw off the recipe (and leave it undercooked).
- If you use frozen cranberries, you need to make sure that there is no extra moisture being added to the batter. Many frozen packaged cranberries have tons of ice crystals (and if you add the ice crystals, you will be adding too much moisture). To get around this problem, you should wash off the ice crystals, strain the cranberries in a colander and then dry the cranberries with a paper towel. Just make sure the cranberries are completely dried off before adding to the batter.
- If you want an even sweeter applesauce loaf, you can use dried cranberries instead of the fresh/frozen cranberries. Companies often add extra sugar to the dried cranberries during the manufacturing process. According to Wikipedia, “most commercially produced dried cranberries contain added sugar”.
- If you are looking for a sandwich-type bread recipe (not a sweet “quick bread”) with cranberries, you should try Bread Dad’s Cranberry Walnut Bread Recipe.
- Be careful when removing this quick bread from the bread pan. Since it is stuffed with cranberries, it can be fragile especially if all of the cranberries are on one side of the quick bread (less “bread” holding the quick bread together at that section). Also cranberries can stick to the bread pan as they bake in the oven.
- If your “quick breads” (i.e. applesauce bread & banana bread) are 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 or using a nonstick pan.
- 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.
- Furthermore, many bakers like to line their bread pan with baking parchment paper in order to reduce the sticking issue and to reduce any potential “breakage” when removing a quick bread from the bread pan.
- Optional – If you don’t have cranberries, you can use blueberries as an alternative and make an applesauce blueberry bread.
- If your family loves cranberries, you should also try our recipes for Pumpkin Cranberry Bread, Cranberry Banana Bread, Cranberry Banana Muffins, Cranberry Bread (with Dried Cranberries), Cranberry Bread (with Fresh Cranberries) and Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies.
- 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 toothpick (or long 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 2 or 3 minutes. Make sure to wear oven gloves because the bread pan will be very hot. After the 2 or 3 minutes, remove the bread pan and test the bread again with a tooth pick.
- 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) may lead to subpar results. Old & hard baking soda/powder may lead to rising problems and/or leave small bitter clumps in your quick bread.
- Please use the suggested 9 x 5 bread pan to make this 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 lengths), smaller pans are more likely to overflow, etc.
- If your oven does not have a built-in thermometer, you can buy an inexpensive oven thermometer that you can place inside your oven (in order to correctly gauge the temperature). Moreover, some built-in oven gauges can be 25-50 degrees different than the actual temperature inside the oven. For the best results, you should know the actual temperature inside your oven (as this reduces the potential for over or under cooked baked products).
- 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 a portable oven thermometer to check the interior oven temperature.
- Since this recipe uses baking soda, this applesauce bread should be placed in the oven as soon as the batter has been mixed & poured into the bread pan. Baking soda activates quickly and if the batter sits around for a while before the bread pan is put in the oven, the quick bread might have problems rising properly (as some or most of the gas will have been released before the baking has commenced).
- Do not remove the light brown sugar from this recipe because the slight acidity of the brown sugar helps to activate the baking soda. Brown sugar also adds a slightly richer taste to this applesauce loaf.
- If you have a problem with an applesauce loaf 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.
- My recipes are based on US ingredient measurements (i.e. US cups & tablespoons). However, as a courtesy to our European visitors, I have also included some very ROUGH European equivalents (i.e. grams & milliliters). Since I rarely use European measurements when baking, please let me know in the comment section below if any of the European ingredient measurements need to be changed (i.e. for XYZ ingredient, milliliters are more commonly used versus the grams information listed in the recipe).
- Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with bread pans & a hot oven.
- For more delicious quick bread recipes (i.e. banana bread, pumpkin bread, blueberry bead or cornbread), 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. We LOVE to hear from people who have enjoyed our recipes!! Jump to comment section
Reference Sources
- Wikipedia, Applesauce, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_sauce
- Wikipedia, Cranberry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry
- Wikipedia, Dried Cranberry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_cranberry
- Wikipedia, Quick Bread, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_bread
Applesauce Bread Recipe (with Cranberries)
This applesauce bread recipe is delicious & easy to make. It combines sweet applesauce with slightly tangy cranberries in order to create a wonderful snack or dessert. Visit BreadDad.com for more great bread recipes.
Servings: 12 Slices
Calories: 253kcal
Ingredients
- 8 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter (softened)
- 2 Eggs (large)
- 1 1/4 Cups Applesauce
- 2 Cups Flour (all purpose flour)
- 1 Cup White Granulated Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar
- 1 1/2 Cups Cranberries (fresh)
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder (aluminum free)
- 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Soften butter in a microwave.
- Stir eggs, applesauce and butter together.
- Mix in remaining ingredients (except the cranberries). Stir until the batter is fully mixed.
- Add the cranberries after the batter has been completely mixed. Make sure the cranberries are evenly spread throughout the batter.
- Grease bread pan (if necessary).
- Pour finished batter into a nonstick bread pan. Smooth out the top of the batter within the bread pan.
- Bake in the oven for 65-70 minutes.
- Take out of oven and let the applesauce bread cool down in the bread pan for 10 minutes. Do not remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan during this 10 minute cool down period. Use oven mitts as the bread pan will be very hot coming out of the oven.
- After 10 minutes, remove the applesauce bread from the bread pan. Place the applesauce bread on a 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 bread is stuck in the pan.
Notes
This is a Bread Dad recipe and may not be copied or reproduced. This recipe is copyright protected under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Legal Disclaimer
The nutritional information is provided using recipe widgets such as WP Recipe Maker. These figures should only be considered as an estimate. The information is provided as a courtesy to our visitors. It 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: 253kcal | Carbohydrates: 42g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 47mg | Sodium: 238mg | Potassium: 71mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 24g | Vitamin A: 288IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 35mg | Iron: 1mg
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