Apple/Cinnamon Bread

Author: Justin
Serves 8-12

2 cups white flour	3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt	1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened	1 egg, beaten
1 1/4 cup milk	1 small tart apple, peeled, cored and sliced
1/3 cup + 2 Tbl dark brown sugar	1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, white sugar, butter, egg, and milk thoroughly until smooth; it will get a little doughy.

Fold in apple, then 1/3 cup brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Try to get streaks of the spices and sugar through the dough -- do not mix it much.

Pour into heavily buttered, large bread pan. Sprinkle 2 Tbl brown sugar on top.

Bake at 350 degrees, 60-80 minutes.

Notes and Variations

This is, of course, technically a cake rather than a bread. It is the official bread of our monthly poker circle; it's very much a dessert bread. It would probably go quite well with ice cream, although I haven't tried that yet.

Sources

Invented by Justin. I was extremely fond of the apple/cinnamon bread from Big Sky Bakers (our local yuppie bakery), and was quite annoyed when they suddenly went out of business. I spent about six months hacking to try to duplicate that bread; this isn't quite it, but is good enough that I'm happy with it. The recipe is hybridized from several fruit breads in the Joy of Cooking, repeatedly tweaked until it came out right.