Raw Apple Bread

Here is a recipe for a really delicious quick bread. We cook a lot with apples up here in the Pacific Northwest, and I especially love to do so. This recipe came from the Apple Farm Inn, in San Luis Obispo, California, where I used to eat when visiting my mother. 

Raw Apple Bread

4 cups diced, peeled apples (about 3 medium to large apples)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup oil
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoons salt

Break eggs over apples; mix with fork. Add and mix other ingredients in order given. Grease two standard-size loaf pans and line with waxed paper. Spoon batter into pans; bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. If you use the small loaf pans, bake 30 to 45 minutes. The bread should be gently browned and pulling away from the sides of the pan.

DONNA'S NOTES: The original recipe called for 2 cups of sugar. I reduced it, and you cannot tell the difference. I mix the flour, baking soda, and salt together before adding them to the batter. This makes about 16 slices, using standard loaf pans, at 193 calories per slice.

Rolled Oat Goodies (Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies)

This is my mother's recipe for oatmeal-raisin cookies. I've been making it for eons, and my kids and grands love it.

When I made it for this Christmas, I reduced the sugar by half. I'll give you the original recipe, but I want to assure you that I no longer use two cups of sugar in it. I do use shortening, because butter just doesn't come out well. However, I've used either coconut oil (solid at room temperature) or an organic shortening (no soy!), and both worked well.

When I was in kindergarten, at Miami School, in Wabash, Indiana, (1950-1951), the class put together a cookbook. I still have my copy, and this is the recipe my mother contributed. My teacher gave her name as "Mrs. Dudley Lavengood." Can you imagine a contemporary teacher doing that?!?

ROLLED OAT GOODIES

1 cup shortening
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup raisins
2-1/4 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups rolled oats (Use normal oats, not the quick-cooking type.)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)


Cream shortening and brown sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flavoring and raisins. Sift flour, soda, and salt together. Add dry ingredients, rolled oats and nuts, blending well. Drop by teaspoonsful onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in 375-degree oven for 10 minutes.