Recipe: Applesauce Pumpkin Bread

I knew I wanted to make a recipe that included pumpkin and applesauce, since I already had those on hand. I came across this bread recipe on AllRecipes.com. I cut the recipe in half, since the original is for two loaves of bread. I don't need that much! (Plus, I only have one bread pan. So there you go.)

Ingredients

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups applesauce
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground mace
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (optional)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup confectioners sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 9x5-inch loaf pans.
2. Mix white sugar and applesauce together in a large bowl; stir pumpkin puree and eggs into sugar mixture until smooth. Mix baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, ginger, cloves, and mace into pumpkin mixture; fold in walnuts and chocolate chips. Stir flour into pumpkin mixture until fully incorporated. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pans.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of each loaf comes out clean, 1 hour. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack. Sprinkle each loaf with confectioners' sugar.

Along with cutting the recipe in half, I did not add the mace (I didn't know what that was, so I didn't use it. But I looked it up, and it's just another name for nutmeg!), nuts, or chocolate chips. And I didn't powder the loaf with confectioners sugar: who needs more sugar?! This bread is so moist and came out of the pan really easily (I sprayed with PAM beforehand). This is an easy (and yummy!) recipe!