Apple Sauce Cake

¾ cup (175 mL) margarine or butter, softened

1½ cups (375 mL) sugar

3 eggs

2¾ cups (675 mL) sifted flour

1½ tsp (7 mL) salt

1½ tsp (7 mL) baking powder

¾ tsp (3 mL) baking soda

¾ tsp (3 mL) nutmeg

¾ tsp (3 mL) cinnamon

1 14 oz (398 mL) can sweetened applesauce

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).

Cream together margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs. Sift together dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture, alternating with applesauce, beating after each addition.

If you like, stir in ¾ cup (175 mL) chopped walnuts before pouring batter into loaf pans.

Pour into two prepared (sprayed or rubbed with a bit of butter or margarine) 8-by 4-in. (20-by 10-cm) loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour or until done. (Start checking at the 50-minute mark.)

Remove and let cool for about 10 minutes before removing from pans and putting on rack to cool completely.

Sugar Glaze:

Combine ½ cup (125 mL) sifted icing sugar with 1 tbsp. (15 mL) water. Pour over cake.

---REVIEW---

This is super easy to make (as long as you don't decide to fix the alignment on your mixer in the middle of making the batter), can be made without really having to buy any extra ingredients (if you have a baker's pantry like I have accumulated) and was a big crowd pleaser.

Note that you are going to need 2 bread loaf pans. I didn't and therefore I had to grab the closest thing that I had to another bread pan, and being flustered and on the phone I forgot to oil it before pouring the batter in. I knew immediately and should have poured it out, oiled, re-poured in, but I didn't. There is a reason there are no pictures of that cake above.

While this was a wonderfully delicious cake, I didn't really taste any apple, which is something that Patient in the Pantry said made this cake her favorite. I am not 100% sure that adding more apple sauce would fix this (maybe I was expecting too much apple) because it just bakes away. Next time I'm going to add a little more and she how it goes.

Also note, Brandon hated how this cake baking made our house smell (you know, like any baked good with cinnamon and nutmeg in it), and I will admit that I was super surprised at how the smell infiltrated our whole house. I liked the smell.