A couple weeks ago I got an email from fellow cookbook author, Anne Byrn, who I had worked with a couple years back when she was passing through town promoting one of her cookbooks. Anne wrote to let me know that she just released a new cookbook, American Cake, which features iconic American cakes and the history and stories that surround them. She was gracious enough to let me share one of the recipes with all of you, so I chose this 1917 Applesauce Cake.
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About the Book, American Cake
Okay, let me just say that American Cake is absolutely stunning. It’s a hardcover book full of beautiful photography and fascinating stories to go along with each recipe.
The recipes are arranged in chronological order from the mid 1600’s through the present and Anne discusses the changing culture of each era and how events shaped the use of ingredients and baking styles of the time.
I could happily cozy up in a corner with this book and read it like a novel. It’s so much more than just recipes and is perfect for history buffs. It’s definitely going on my holiday gift guide this year! You can read more about the book and find out where to buy it here.
About the Apple Sauce Cake
I chose to make the 1917 Applesauce Cake because of its simplicity. It has only a few ingredients and is easily made vegan for my vegan friends (just replace butter with a solid plant-based fat, like shortening or coconut oil).
But most of all, this cake is not too-too sweet or rich. The warm spices make it perfect for fall or pairing with a rich cup of coffee. The small amount of fat in this cake means that it feels fairly light on the stomach and I didn’t feel weighed down afterwards.
…Although I have to admit, that scoop of vanilla ice cream that I put on top made it absolutely heavenly! Something about the mix of cool and warm, vanilla and spices. Oh yes.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this recipe and I can’t recommend this book enough!
Can I Make This Cake Vegan?
Yes! This recipe is SUPER simple to convert into a vegan cake. Simply replace the 2 Tbsp butter with cooking oil and you’re good to go!
Anne Byrn’s 1917 Applesauce Cake
Servings 9 1 piece eachIngredients
- 1 cup sugar ($0.16)
- 2 Tbsp butter (plus some for the pan) ($0.31)
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce ($0.64)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (plus 1 Tbsp) ($0.19)
- 1 tsp baking soda ($0.04)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg ($0.03)
- 2/3 cup raisins ($0.72)
Instructions
- Allow the butter to come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Coat the inside of an 8×8-inch baking dish with butter.
- In a large bowl, cream together 2 Tbsp of butter and the sugar using a hand mixer or mixing by hand with a wooden spoon. Add the applesauce and stir to combine.
- In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and nutmeg until well combined.
- Pour the flour mixture into the applesauce mixture and stir just until combined.
- In a separate small bowl, toss the raisins with about 1 Tbsp flour until they are lightly coated. Fold the flour coated raisins into the cake batter. Spread the cake batter into the prepared baking dish.
- Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes, or until the the center springs back when pressed. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before slicing into 9 pieces.
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Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!Scroll down to see the step by step photos!
How to Make Applesauce Cake – Step by Step Photos
I just wanted to give you a little sneak peek inside the book. Like I said, the photography is GORGEOUS and each recipe comes with an awesome little story about the cake and how it is representative of what was going on in the country at the time. This 1917 Applesauce cake uses really basic ingredients and is considerate of ingredients that were rationed during WWI. Sounds like a perfect fit for today’s budgets, too!
Start out by greasing the inside of an 8×8-inch baking dish (or similar size-mine is more like 7×9). Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
In a large bowl, cream together 2 Tbsp butter and 1 cup sugar. I decided to use a wooden spoon so I could feel like I was making this in 1917. Just kidding! The beaters for my hand mixer were dirty and I was too lazy to go wash them. Jokes on me though, because this definitely took more effort with a wooden spoon than it would have taken to wash the beaters. SMH.
Stir in one cup of unsweetened applesauce.
In a separate bowl, stir together 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg until well combined.
Combine the applesauce mixture with the flour mixture…
And stir just until combined.
In a separate bowl, toss 3/4 cup raisins with about 1 Tbsp flour until they’re coated. There is a note in the book about how coating the raisins in this manner helps them stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom. Cool! Once coated, fold the raisins into the cake batter.
Spread the cake batter into the prepared dish.
Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the center springs back when you press on it lightly. You can also give it the toothpick test and insert a toothpick into the center. If it comes out clean, it’s done. If it comes out coated with wet cake batter, then it needs a few more minutes.
Let the cake cool for about 15 minutes, then slice into 9 pieces and serve. I accidentally sliced mine into 12 pieces and they were a tad small, so I would suggest nine.
You can give it a light dusting of powdered sugar, or go big and add a big ol’ scoop of ice cream.
What? I had to eat it before the ice cream melted. ;D
Wow this was good, and somehow seemed perfect for Easter, with golden raisins. I used parchment paper in a 8 x 8 pan, and replaced butter with avocado oil. It turned out deliciously moist after 40 minutes. Unsweetened applesauce is a must, because a whole cup of sugar is added. Next time, I will try adding some orange zest to the dry ingredients and see what happens! :)
This looks amazing. Any thoughts from anyone who’s tried gluten free? I’m going to try it with an all-purpose 1-1 blend and report back.
Made this cake and it was a terrific smell in the oven for fall!! I left out cloves (not a fan) and used vegan butter. The texture was wonderful. It’s a perfect simple snacking cake. I did need to bake for 35 minutes. One of my favorite things to make in the fall is applesauce in my crockpot. I used applesauce from a jar for the recipe tonight but wondering if anyone has tried to make this with homemade applesauce? I can’t help but thinking a fresh, chunky applesauce instead of store bought might be amazing here?
Every summer my grandma would always make me a homemade birthday cake and I would choose applesauce cake or carrot cake and they were the best tasting cakes ever . Thanks for the recipe so I don’t have to look for her recipe.
I really like this cake and have made it many times. Each time I have such difficulty getting the center of the cake to bake all the way through. I have adjusted the baking time and the temperature and have yet to get the middle to not be too soft and underbaked. Please advise what to do. You say “baking dish” so I’ve used a glass baking dish and have adjusted the temperature accordingly. Such good flavor but really frustrating that I have extra time in the kitchen popping it in and out of the oven to no avail. Thanks for your guidance in this
Absolutely amazing cake recipe!! Very inexpensive and is not a sweet cake mix. My spouse can’t eat sugary desserts and he really enjoyed this!! I am adding this one to my recipe book for sure. A must have if you have children that like cake. Next time I am going to try homemade apple sauce from our apple tree. Apple pieces along with the raisins will make an awesome combination, plus great way to use up the apple tree apples. Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe! 😀
Love old recipes…always have ingredients on hand
I love the taste of this but I have continued to have problems getting the center to cook enough. I raised the temperature to 360 and bake it 35 minutes and it’s still doughy in the middle. I’ve also kept it at 350 and continued up to 40 minutes with the peripheral pieces borderline over baked and the center still doughy. Anyone else have this problem? What do you suggest?
Hmm, I’ve never encountered that problem. I wonder if reducing the applesauce slightly might help by reducing the moisture a bit?
I think I’ll try a bigger pan and use metal instead. I’d hate to use less applesauce and run the risk it gets to dry.
That’s occasionally happened to me, too, maybe to a lesser degree than what you’re describing. I’m trying to remember what I did – maybe cover the pan with foil towards the end? I haven’t minded a little softness because there’s no eggs anyway, but it does crop up for me once in a while.
Made the recipe mostly as printed, except I think I may have undercooked mine a bit due to cooking for a little over 20 minutes. I thought the spice was nice and forward in this recipe. For those who think it doesn’t taste like much of anything, remember to sniff your spices before using! I suspect some may be using old, less pungent spices. I ground up whole clove and microplaned some nutmeg for extra fresh flavor. This recipe is light, warm, spicy, and good! I will make it again.
hoping you can help me out….i have made this recipe and it’s amazing, but I accidentally picked up strawberry applesauce this time and afraid it will be weird in this, can i make modifications so it works or is there another recipe you could suggest? thx in advance!
Hmm, unfortunately, I’ve never had strawberry applesauce so I’m not sure how it would work in this recipe or anything else you could use it for. :(
I looked up “desserts using strawberry applesauce” and saw a Google listing for strawberry applesauce muffins. Try Googling that! Sounds like a great place to experiment :)
I was looking for a simple breakfast cake that used applesauce and was low-calorie as far as cakes go. This one really satisfied me. The cake has an apple flavor in the background but it’s more of a raisin-spice cake than an apple cake overall, which is fine by me especially in winter season. The spices aren’t overpowering but they are definitely there, the only thing I changed was that I more than halved the cloves because freshly ground cloves are an extremely dominant spice. I also soaked the raisins in some wine that I had beforehand because I like plump raisins, but that’s totally optional.
Also, this cake only has two tablespoons of oil/butter and still tastes good with good texture (and no eggs!). I was a bit skeptical about that but it worked.
Overall, it reminds me of certain old-fashioned autumn/winter sweets like grape must sweets. I will mak it again for sure.
Delicious and easy! Left out raisins and added splash of vanilla extract; will make again and again.
Can I add diced apple to the recipe instead of raisins?
I usually LOVE all the BudgetBytes recipes. This cake was okay but a little strong as far as spices go but Im sure that’s just my personal preference. Still delicious but I would halve the amount of spices if I make this again.
I have made this cake many times since getting Ann Byrne’s cookbook. It is so easy to make and delicious! I find I need to bake it longer than suggested, however.
Made this today! Incredibly easy, and a great way to use up a jar of applesauce that always seems to sit unused in my fridge! Like others, I upped the spices fourfold and used only a scant cup of sugar.
Even with all of my modifications, this is simply delish! I subbed in one third white whole wheat flour, reduced the sugar to two-thirds cup of loosely packed brown (it sounded better than my only other sugar option: demerara), and used only half the amount of raisins. Based on other reviewers, I bumped up the spices too. My cake turned out a little more rustic-looking than the pics here, but it works for me and clocks in at just a smidge over 200 calories per square. 😊,
Amusing note: I must have checked and re-checked the recipe at least a dozen times while mixing it. No eggs. Nope. Not a one.
This is a wonderful cake, perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. I don’t usually like raisins but I can’t imagine this cake without them. I have Anne’s cookbook, AmericanCake and I love it!
It’s a bit out of season, but I just made this cake. I reduced the sugar to 3/4 of a cup but otherwise followed the instructions. Perfect, and so easy! I also ordered a copy of the cookbook for my Mom, who will love the stories.
Not a raisin fan – any recommended substitutes?
You can just leave them out. :)
I use this recipe as well and just substitute with dried cranberries.
I made this a couple of weeks ago, and found it promising, but a little heavy/dense/sticky, and the batter was so thick that it was hard to spread out in the pan — certainly unlike any sort of cake batter consistency I’ve encountered before. I had more or less doubled the spices, but thought they still seemed kinda wimpy, and could really be punched up further yet! So today, I made it again and did three major things differently: (1) I beat an egg into the creamed butter/sugar (for added batter moisture and extra leavening), and a splash of vanilla; (2) I used cake flour instead of all-purpose, for a finer crumb (actually, I don’t typically have cake flour on hand, so I used the standard substitution — for each cup of AP flour, replace 2 Tbsp of flour with 2 Tbsp corn starch); (3) I punched up all the spices — more or less quadrupled the cinnamon and nutmeg, doubled the cloves (freshly ground), and added a generous amount of ground ginger, allspice, cardamom, and even a bit of freshly-ground black pepper. Perhaps this is more “spicy” than the creator of the recipe had in mind, but it conformed much more closely to what I had envisioned when I read the recipe! I thought the result was terrific (and so did everyone in my choir, to whom I served it during rehearsal break)! Will make again with these mods.
So good, and very simple to make!!! Thank you for this phenomenal recipe, Beth!!! :-)
Wonderfully delicious
Hi Beth! Do you think I could swap in whole wheat flour for this recipe or do half and half?
I wouldn’t do more than 1/2 substitution. Usually when you sub the whole amount of AP flour for whole wheat you get quite a texture and flavor difference. Whole wheat flour is so much more dense and absorbs so much more liquid than all-purpose.
Do you think it’s possible to use mashed bananas to replace the apple sauce in the recipe?
I feel like they might not be quite as moist, but maybe you could tweak it a bit and make it work.
I substituted dried cherries for the raisins, which were sitting around in my pantry looking for something to do, and dropped the cloves, because I don’t have any. The resulting cake was absolutely wonderful and a hit with the kids, who are home for Thanksgiving break and ransacking the kitchen at regular intervals.
That’s one excellent recipe Beth! We love how rustic it is, and the way your prepared and served it. Great job! We’re Greeks ourselves and bought a jar of applesauce in an organic market without having any idea what to do with it since applesauce is a foreign “exotic” ingredient to us here :) Now we know! We’ll make your wonderful cake with spices that are VERY close to what we use in our traditional cakes and desserts in Greece (aka melomakarona etc) :)
Thanx so much for sharing this! We’ll use it very very soon!
Panos and Mirella
We tried it (shared a picture on Twitter) and it was fantastic! It reminded us of moustokouloura in taste, a cookie made with grapemust, only here it’s a cake and instead of grapemust, the applesauce takes its place. And the texture was so rustic and old school, we LOVED it!
Thank you for making our day:) We’re enjoying a piece (each one) with our afternoon coffee now:)
You are right, it really tastes like a grape must sweet.
YUM! This was so good and EASY!! Thank you for sharing it!
Wow Nice I will try next day!!
Team Baked Raisin Hater here. I think I’m going to try swapping the raisins for apple diced.
ooo that would be really good, too!
I actually hate raisins as well. We just made this recipe tonight and we replaced raisins with dried cranberries and it was delicious.
I added a half cup of fresh cranberries and a half cup of diced apples, and it turned out really well!
I made this tonight, and it was delicious. I used only 3/4 cup sugar and it was still plenty sweet. I love that it can be made with things I usually have in the kitchen.
My son and I just made this for my bookclub brunch this a.m. we loved how easy & delicious it was. Plus, it was a good segway into a conversation about rations during wartime. A good learning experience for my family. Thanks for this recipe. I really enjoy your blog!
I can attest that this recipe veganizes really easily! I used Earth Balance (a vegan butter substitute) and it turned out perfect. I’ll also add that I used whole wheat pastry flour (to help me rationalize eating this for breakfast) and splenda.
I topped it with banana soft serve (chopped up frozen banana slices that are blitzed in a food processor until smooth soft-serve consistency) and it was awesome :)
I have made a vegan applesauce cake recently because we have lots of apples on our trees right now. I have always loved applesauce cake because it’s usually not dry, only if one overbakes it.
I will definitely try this one, too. Thanks!
This was easy, moist and delicious. Thanks for all of the great recipes.
Love old, classic, retro recipes (I guess I’m not sure what the correct term here to use is) I have my grandmother’s baking cookbook, it has to be from the late 30’s as it has her maiden name written on the inside cover. I also have her cookbook given to all young wives in the late 40’s early 50’s…. Love looking at the recipes and cooking tips in them. This cookbook looks like it would fit in well next to my inherited ones.
Made this this morning for breakfast and it turned out fantastic! Made a slight adjustment to the spices because I am not a huge fan of cloves, but that was the only tweak. I am not, in general, a baker, so I love finding good, simple, reliable recipes like this!
My favorite cookbooks are ones with beautiful photography. They’re so inspiring!
OK SO I just tweaked this recipe a little and made it into apple oatmeal muffins!!! I replaced 1/2C of the flour with 1/2C rolled oats (I think they were quick oats but I’m not sure, they’re my roommate’s and they’re just in an unlabelled jar), added a dash of vanilla, and left out the raisins, because I don’t like raisins in my baked goods. I also had to make a couple substitutions just because I didn’t have the actual ingredients; I used 1tsp of pumpkin pie spice in place of the individual spices (no cloves or nutmeg), and the closest thing to normal white sugar I had was Demerara sugar. I don’t think all of the grains melted in because I got the occasional crunch of a sugar crystal, but I’m not too upset about that to be honest ;) I got 11 muffins and I baked them in paper liners at 350F for about 28 minutes. They just came out of the oven about 10 minutes ago and I promptly gobbled up 2! I’d say my experiment was a success. Thank you for sharing this lovely simple recipe :)
How moist is this cake? I’ve been looking for a recipe for apple sauce cake/cupcakes similar to something I had years ago that was pretty dense and moist.
Also, how do you think this recipe would do with some freshly grated ginger?
It was very moist. :) I think fresh ginger would be AWESOME.
Is this a sponsored post? Like did you get the cookbook for free or were you paid to promote it?
Didn’t you read the post before the recipe?
I did, it doesn’t say whether she got a copy of the book for free or if she’s being paid to promote it.
It sounded to me like it was just a fellow blogger and cookbook writer allowing Beth to share a recipe with her readers. I don’t remember Beth ever doing sponsored posts in the past and if she did I’m certain she would have noted it, considering she’d be legally obligated to do so and it’s not like she’s new to blogging. I’d guess she got a free copy of the book, just logically speaking, since they’re acquaintances/colleagues, but I don’t see why that matters. She wouldn’t share something with her readers that she didn’t actually believe in. She’s always been integrous in the past.
This is not a sponsored post. If it were, it would be stated first thing at the top of the post because that’s required by the law. The book was gifted to me, but I was by no means obligated to share this recipe or talk about the book. I shared it because I think it’s great! :)
Fantastic on so many levels. Not only do I need this book, I’m getting it for my mother in law for Christmas. And I literally just finished making and canning applesauce for today. I was meant to make this cake today. Thanks for sharing Beth!
Gorgeous pictures! This looks like perfection
Thanks for sharing! This looks like a great, easy to veganize cake, and I appreciate that you chose this one.
I will definitely be purchasing this book, I love reading about day-to-day details from history like cooking, cleaning, style, etc were all handled in different times with different obstacles and levels of technology. It’s also interesting to see how tastes change over time. For example, there’s a cool blog called mid century menu where the author has a library of vintage recipes and tries to prepare them as accurately as possible.
Thank you again!
looks like cake my mom made often to use up the volumes or jars of apple sauce she canned every summer from apples found o a tree planted by a pioneer/settler in the southern Black Hills of SDak. Small apples yet soo tasty.
This looks fabulous! I’ve added the book to my Amazon wish list for Christmas. Hubby doesn’t like raisins baked in things, but this might be my birthday cake this year! Maybe I’ll try dried cranberries (not period, though), even though he likes them more than I do. Thanks to both you and Anne for sharing.
Finally figured it out. This very similar to my great grandmother’s applesauce gingerbread. I shared that recipe with a vegetarian friend about 15-20 years ago. Her mother is vegan.
*This is
Looks delicious and like a perfect fall recipe.
lovely recipe, looks delicious
have a lovely day
http://www.mssparkleandglow.com
This looks absolutely delicious, and not too terribly intimidating (I’m more of a “cook” than a “baker”…) — definitely checking out this book, it sounds right up my alley!
That book looks great! I think it would make a great gift- I’m going to bookmark it for my mother-in-law. :)
And the cake does seem perfect for fall! Thanks for sharing!
Hey Beth! I just wanted to say how much my fiancee and I appreciate all of the vegan friendly recipes you make. We discovered your blog before he went vegan and so after doing so are thrilled to be able to continue using your great recipes! I can’t wait to try this cake it sounds delicious and I was planning on making apple sauce this weekend.