New recipe Sunday--it's Apple Swirl Bread

Happy Cinco De Mayo!  In honor, I made apple swirl bread and banana chocolate chip muffins. Not your traditional Cinco De Mayo food, but maybe later, I'll make black bean dip.

The banana chocolate chip ones are the ones I made a week ago (linked above). I changed them slightly by taking out 1/4 of whole wheat flour and substituting 1/4 cup of flax.  I really like flax. I thought this made a nice change.

I did the same (subtracted 1/4 cup of flour and added 1/4 cup of flax) in the apple swirl bread.  I also cut the sugar and maple syrup in 1/2 in the apple swirl bread.  The apple swirl bread was still VERY sweet.  I will probably reduce the sugar in it even more next time I make it--although, I'll probably make it this sweet when I take it to school for teacher appreciation day brunch.  Here's my modified version (less sugar) of the apple swirl bread with my notes, too. The link above will take you to Dreena Burton's site where she has the original apple swirl bread recipe and a nice photo. 


Apple Mixture:
1/2 cup diced apple (peeled first) (I didn't measure, I just used a whole medium-sized fuji apple)
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (I didn't measure, I just squeezed 1/2 a small lemon)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/8 cup unrefined sugar (I used brown sugar)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice (Nick wants less of this)

Batter:
1 1/4 cups whole-wheat pastry flour (or 1 2/3 cups spelt for wheat-free version--Dreena's note)
1/4 cup flax
1/2 cup oat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon (1 teaspoon)
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup vanilla or plain non-dairy milk (unsweetened almond and soy as I didn't have a lot of either)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1-2 teaspoons of water (or more non-dairy milk)


Dreena's instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  First combine apple mixture: in a bowl, toss apples with lemon juice and then add applesauce, sugar, cinnamon and allspice.  Mix and set aside.  In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients for batter (sifting in baking powder and soda).  Mix well.  In a small bowl, combine milk, maple syrup, and vanilla.  Add wet mixture to dry, stirring through until just well combined (without overmixing). Add apple mixture to batter, and using a spoon or knife, ever so slightly fold/swirl it into the batter (okay to have thicker spots, as above, these will create delicious flavor swirls)!  Pour into a lightly oiled (just wipe with a paper towel) 9″ x 5″ loaf pan (I use glass).  Bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden and a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.  

I overmixed the apple mixture in the batter and didn't get great swirls, but the bread was really tasty! It's really sweet; I plan to cut the sugar even more in the apple mixture (down to just 1 tablespoon) and probably only use 3 tablespoons of maple syrup in the batter next time.