Applesauce Cake Recipe

Vintage cookbooks have a special place in my heart. I love their window into the way people used to cook, eat, and entertain. Not all recipes from vintage cookbooks translate well into today’s modern kitchen, but some recipes are timeless.

This simple recipe for Applesauce Cake is based on a recipe in a two-volume cookbook set, The American Heritage Cookbook and Illustrated History of American Eating & Drinking, from 1964. While not the oldest cookbook in my collection, it’s one of my favorites, and I’ve made the Applesauce Cake many times, as a loaf and as mini-Bundts.

Although it’s called a cake, the loaf shape seems more like a quick bread and I love it for breakfast with a nice cup of tea. It’s a very forgiving recipe, adaptable to what’s on hand. Don’t have white whole-wheat flour? Just use an equal amount of all-purpose flour. Substitute nutmeg for the cloves, light brown sugar for the dark brown, butter for the margarine, walnuts for the pecans, or omit the raisins or nuts. I used my own home-canned applesauce, but there’s no shame in using store-bought (if your applesauce is sweetened, remember to cut back on the sugar). The original recipe also called for chopped pitted dates, which would be a real treat.

If you serve it as a dessert, a glaze made with powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla would dress it up nicely.

Applesauce Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white whole-wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) 80% vegetable oil margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup plumped raisins*
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

• Whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves; set aside.
• In a medium mixing bowl, cream the margarine and the brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed, until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
• Beat in the egg.
• Alternately beat in the flour mixture and the applesauce, starting and ending with the flour mixture (do not overbeat).
• With a spatula, stir in the raisins and pecans.
• Spread the batter in a greased 9”x5” loaf pan.
• Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 50 to 60 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Let the cake cool in the pan on a metal rack for about 5 minutes, then remove it from the pan and let it cool completely on the rack.

* To plump the raisins, put them in a measuring cup and cover them with water. Microwave them on high power for about a minute, then let them rest in the hot water for several minutes. Drain them well before adding them to the batter.

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