Applesauce Cheddar Quick Bread

     We eat an alarming amount of bread in this house. The Wife loves her bread. The Spud really, really likes her bread. I certainly enjoy bread. We embrace gluten lovingly and with all our beings. We love it enough that we eventually started using the hashtag #sundaysareforbaking. That makes it serious. I think. Maybe not. This particular bread is from an ancient canning book that still gets a lot of mileage in our house. It's a great quick bread. If you make your own applesauce, which we do, it's even better. The timing on the bread is a little iffy. It took us way longer to bake than the book called for. This is a fantastic breakfast bread, spread with a little sweet butter or marmalade. Perhaps top it with my Mulberry Jam? I imagine it would make a dynamite peanut butter and jelly sandwich, too. As always, notes and changes are in blue.

Applesauce Cheddar Quick Bread
via BH&G Home Canning Cook Book

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup applesauce (why not try my Peach Bourbon Applesauce!)
• 3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (omitted. The Wife is not a huge fan of nuts in her bread.)

Directions

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (maybe I'm not doing this for long enough, because I have never been able to achieve light and fluffy consistency. I always end up with something on par with cake frosting)
2. Add eggs, beat well.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, soda and salt. Add to the creamed butter mix. Stir in the applesauce, cheese and nuts (if using)
4. Turn into a greased loaf pan (what am I, a wizard? I never got a Hogwarts letter so I'm not really up on my Transfiguration and Polymorph spells. How about I just dump the mixture into a loaf pan?)
5. Bake at 350F (180C, Gasmark 4) for 50-55 minutes (fair warning, this may take way longer than the stated time. It took me closer to 75-90 minutes. Just run it for the 55, then check it with a knife. If it comes out clean, you're fine. If it comes out wet, you're not done. If it comes out covered in blood and ichor, your oven is possessed.) Cool 10 minutes in the pan. Remove to finish cooling on a wire rack.

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