Autumnal Treat

I have a big fat bag full of apples in my fridge. I bought it at the farmer's market 2 weeks ago and I'm still trying to figure out ways to use these apples (besides eating them out of hand - they are delicious!). Last night I had a fancy for apple bread, and I sensed an opportunity to test out a recipe from my newest cookbook - Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

This cookbook is really fantastic. It teaches you how to cook just about, yes, everything. Not only that, but it has tons of instruction on basic techniques and preparations, and lots of handy diagrams. (Thanks to Kalyn for the recommendation in her blog!) The recipe I picked out is for Apple Quickbread, but I'll call it Apple-Cranberry Quickbread because I threw in some fresh cranberries. I also substituted rolled oats for the 1/2 cup of cornmeal that the book recommended. This bread is so good! I had a nice thick slice of it before bed last night, still warm out of the oven, smeared with a bit of Neufchatel cheese.


Apple-Cranberry Quickbread

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• ½ cup rolled oats
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 egg
• ½ stick melted butter
• 1 ¼ cups milk
• 1 peeled and grated apple
• 3/4 cup fresh or frozen cranberries (not thawed)

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter a 9x5 ich loaf pan. Combine all the dry ingredients. Beat the egg with the butter and milk. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it, along with the apple and cranberries. Using a large spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients swiftly, stirring and folding rather than beating, and stopping as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be lumpy, not smooth. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out dry. Cool on a rack for at least 10 minutes before removing from pan.