Lunchbox Applesauce Cake

By Addie

If you’re looking for an easy cake that tastes great and makes the house smell good, here it is. I baked this on Sunday. It smells a lot better than a Glade plug-in and tastes better too. We tried this a few hours after it was baked and it was delicious. However, it tasted even best on the second day so we sliced the leftovers, wrapped the cake slices in cling wrap and took them to a construction crew.

The hokey name comes from the fact that every time I think about this cake, I think of some 1950′s construction worker sitting on a scaffold eating this cake out of a tin lunch box.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour, measured after sifting
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 4 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups applesauce
• 1/2 cup golden raisins (or use a mix of regular and golden)
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
• Powdered sugar, optional

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 325 if using a black Bundt pan.

After you’ve sifted the all purpose flour and measured out 2 ¼ cups, mix it with baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Grease the pan with shortening and dust with flour or spray with flour-added cooking spray.

Beat the butter until creamy. Add the brown sugar and continue mixing. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla, then mix until well blended and fluffy.

Add applesauce to the creamed mixture and stir well, then gently stir in the flour mixture, scraping batter up with a rubber scraper to ensure it’s incorporated. Fold in the raisins and walnuts. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 45 minutes or until cake tests done.

Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn on to a wire rack to finish cooling.