Applesauce Bread and Mini Muffins

When my son had is tonsillectomy a couple weeks ago, my husband went out and bought a bunch of "soft" foods.  All of which Grant refused to eat.  I'm talking pudding, luigi's Italian ice, applesauce, jello, popsicles, he wouldn't eat any of it.  Of course Derrick thought he was being good buying the biggest boxes of jello and pudding, the largest jar of applesauce, and the big bag of popsicles.  The only item out of all of it I was afraid was going to go bad was the applesauce.  I knew Derrick wouldn't eat it, of course Grant wouldn't touch it, and I can only eat it as a side dish for so long.  Now the homemade applesauce I made back in the fall I could eat every day... and I did....til it was gone.

I started searching online for how to use it as a substitute for oil and butter in my baking recipes and came across this applesauce bread recipe.  I love quick breads and have quite a few recipes in my recipe arsenal.  Grant will eat the bread sometimes but he investigates it before eating it and once that happens a lot of times he decides it's "yucky" before taking the first bite. 

Now mini muffins he will devour by the bowl full.  I make 24 at a time and they are gone in 2-3 days.  He loves them so I try to find various recipes and sneak healthy ingredients in them when I can.  I thought I could probably take the applesauce bread recipe and make it into mini muffins without an issue, but I didn't want 40 some mini muffins so I went ahead and made a medium sized loaf of the bread and used the leftover batter to make 21 mini muffins.

Applesauce Bread

1/3c butter-softened
1c sugar
1 1/4c applesauce
1 1/2c flour
3/4t baking soda
3/4t cinnamon
1/2t baking powder
1/2t salt
1/2t nutmeg
1/8t cloves
1t vanilla
optional * 1/2c raisins 1/2c chopped walnuts

Cream butter and sugar.  Add the egg, applesauce, and vanilla, mix well.  Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cloves in another bowl.  Stir into creamed mixture just until moist.  Fold in nuts and raisins if you're using them.  Pour into greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 60-65 minutes.
*I used a medium sized loaf pan and it took about 30-40 minutes to bake through.  The mini muffins I made took 11-12  minutes at 350 degrees.

They turned out super moist and Grant started gobbling them up immediately.  I thought there was a little too much spices in the ingredients, not so much so that I won't be eating some of the bread but the next time I make it I think I'll use 1/2t cinnamon, 1/4t nutmeg, and a dash of cloves, instead of the amounts the recipe calls for.  I also added about 1tsp vanilla.  The recipe didn't call for it but there isn't really anything I bake that doesn't have vanilla in the recipe so it just didn't feel right leaving it out.  I also didn't add the raisins or walnuts.  I knew if I added either of them I was risking Grant not even trying them but declaring them "yucky" because there was "stuff in it".

Maybe it's just the pregnancy talking but a warm slice of this bread topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is calling my name.  YUM!