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.
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
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
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.