Modern Baker Challenge: Whole Grain Apple Raisin Bread

This is another easy quick bread from The Modern Baker. The only difficult part of preparing it was the number of dishes it created.

I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl: whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. I whisked the wet ingredients in another: egg, safflower oil, and brown sugar. I grated the apple into another bowl, chopped up the walnuts, and measured out the raisins. Then I combined it all with a rubber scraper and dumped it into a pan.

I baked it for 35 minutes (the shorter end of the time frame), remembering how my blueberry muffins were a little overdone and dry. Checked it again after 40 minutes. Then I remembered Andrea's post (over at Family & Food) in which she talked about how she needed to bake this bread for 50 minutes before it was cooked all the way through.

I got a dry toothpick after 45 minutes, so I pulled the bread out and we let it cool for about 5 minutes before slicing into it. The first few slices were great: we loved the nutty flavor of the whole wheat mixed with the apple, slightly sweet raisins, and crunchy walnuts. But about three slices in, we ran into a problem: uncooked batter. Argh.

The oven was still on (I was making granola), so I threw the bread back into the pan and back into the oven for another 13 minutes. But it was obviously too late in the process. We ended up cutting off slices from both ends and then having to throw away the middle section of the bread. Very sad.

I'm not certain why it took so much longer to bake; I had even squeezed a lot of the excess moisture out of the apples before adding them to the batter. Still, the taste (of the cooked parts) was delicious and we will likely try this one again.