Moist One Bowl Applesauce Loaf Cake Recipe (Easy) - Gracious Cooking (2024)

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Applesauce Loaf Cake is an incredibly easy, flavorful quick bread with a moist crumb and warm spices that comes together in one bowl.

This recipe uses pantry ingredients, minimal dishes, and does not require a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer. What’s not to love? I love a little slice of this cake for breakfast or a little afternoon snack.

Technique Overview

What Is A Quick Bread?

A quick bread is a bread made with a chemical leavening agent, such as baking soda or baking powder, instead of a biological leavening agent like yeast or a sourdough starter (see more info atthis Wikipedia article).

As the name implies quick breads are, well, quick! You can cook them immediately after you make the dough or batter, unlike yeasted or sourdough bread doughs which require extensive rising time before they can be baked.

Examples Of Quick Breads

• Banana Bread
• Churro Bread
• Pancakes
• Pound Cakes
• Biscuits
• Scones
• Most cakes
  • Apple Cinnamon Bundt Cake
  • Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes
  • Pumpkin Pie Crunch Cake
  • Peach Almond Cake
  • Layer cakes
  • Sheet cakes
• Muffins
  • Apple Cinnamon Muffins
  • Chocolate Chip Muffins
  • Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

This is just a small smattering of quick breads. In traditional American cooking, we use quick breads extensively. I’m from Georgia, and hellllooooooo biscuits and pound cake!

In this applesauce cake recipe, we will be using the muffin method for mixing a quick bread. This means preparing your wet and dry ingredients separately and then adding the dry to the wet and mixing until combined. You technically should use two different bowls, one for wet and one for dry ingredients, but we’re going to cheat and just use one. It works, I promise. Just don’t tell on me.

Ingredients For Applesauce Loaf Cake

1. Unsalted butter: I often prefer vegetable oil in my quick breads for moisture, but the applesauce takes care of that in this recipe, so we can add the delicious flavor of butter. Yum. If you only have salted butter, never fear. Just decrease the amount of salt you add by 1/4 teaspoon and you will still end up with a delicious cake.
2. Light brown sugar: you could also use dark brown sugar if you prefer. Dark brown sugar has more molasses in it compared to light brown sugar.
3. Vanilla extract
4. One large egg
5. Unsweetened applesauce: It is important to get the unsweetened variety, as the cake will end up tasting way too sweet if you use sweetened applesauce. Apples already have a high sugar content, which is concentrated when the applesauce is baked. If you make your own applesauce, I would not use your precious homemade applesauce in this recipe. The nuances will be lost once the cake is baked. Store-bought applesauce is perfectly good for this recipe. The applesauce is what gives this cake its yummy, moist texture and light apple flavor.
6. All purpose flour
7. Baking soda: here’s your chemical leavener! Baking soda is activated by acid, which in this case is in the applesauce.
8. Fine sea salt
9. Ground cinnamon
10. Ground nutmeg: I really prefer freshly ground nutmeg, but use what you’ve got.
11. Turbinado sugar: this is sugar with a large crystal structure that is so crunchy and delicious. It is optional, but it forms such a great crunchy topping for the cake when it’s sprinkled over the batter before baking.

The exact ingredient measurements are found in the recipe card at the end of this post.

Add-ins And Toppings

I tested this recipe with old fashioned oats added to the batter, but I did not think they were a good addition. They made the cake dry and too chewy. However, if you wanted to, you could add a handful of raisins or chopped walnuts to the batter. I just don’t recommend oats.

As for toppings, my family loves this cake served with a big ol’ dollop of whipped cream. Ice cream or caramel sauce would not be remiss. Let me know in the comments if you serve it with anything!

​Necessary Equipment

For this easy applesauce cake, you will need:

• medium mixing bowl
• a set of measuring cups and spoons
• whisk
• rubber spatula
• nonstick baking spray
• 9″x5″ loaf pan
• cake tester, such as a wooden skewer or other long, thin implement. Sometimes I use my instant read thermometer as a cake tester.
• cooling rack

Step By Step Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with an oven rack in the center position. Spray the loaf cake generously with nonstick baking spray.

2. Melt the butter in your medium bowl in the microwave. You can also melt the butter on the stove and add it to the mixing bowl. I’m just trying to save you a dirty dish.

3. Add the brown sugar and whisk until smooth. Then add the vanilla and egg. Whisk again. Add your 1 and 1/2 cups applesauce and whisk again.

​4. To the same medium mixing bowl that contains the wet ingredients, add the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Fold the cake batter together with a rubber spatula. This is done by starting at the top of the bowl (the edge furthest away from you), and scooping down to the bottom of the bowl before bringing your spatula up and folding the ingredients from the bottom of the bowl over the ones on the top. Fold and mix until the batter no longer has flour streaks in it. Be sure you get all of the wet ingredients from the bottom of the bowl.

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared baking pan, and spread it out evenly with your spatula. Evenly sprinkle turbinado sugar over the top of the batter.

6. Bake in your preheated oven for about 60 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, or just with a few little crumbs on it. You don’t want to see raw batter on the cake tester.

7. Once the cake pan is cool enough to touch, remove and let the cake cool on a wire rack or a cutting board. Pat yourself on the back for making the best cake with basic ingredients. Great success!

8. When the cake is cool, slice it and enjoy your moist cake with whipped cream!

​More Quick Bread Recipes…

How Did It Go?

After you make this tasty little applesauce spice cake, please tell me how it went! Your feedback is incredibly valuable. Leave me a comment and I will reply!

Thanks so much for being a part of the Gracious Cooking community. I’m so glad you’re here.

Happy Cooking!

Carli Christiansen

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