Breakfast of Champions: Alabama Apple Bread
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 10:44AM 
Monday night I baked yet another loaf of my famous apple bread. And I'm calling it famous, simply because I've been making a loaf pretty much every week since the beginning of October. This breakfast item has been a staple in our diets ever since we received our first apples, and I've changed the recipe a bit over the months, supplementing the fall fruit with whatever else happened to be on hand at the time - persimmons, hickory nuts*, figs. A healthy amount of Alabama honey makes this bread incredibly moist. I also love the flavor that the bran imparts.
The phenomenon of our constant apple bread is due largely in part to our robust supply of apples. As you can see, they save remarkably well. My mother-in-law gave us a big basket of apples for Christmas from Scott's Apple Orchard. Since they most likely had been off the tree for some time, I immediately put this batch of apples in the crisper of our refrigerator, where they have remained suprisingly pristine, save the occasional rogue (or just very old) few that soften and turn brown. I have to remind myself sometimes that it's February - I definitely was not anticipating four and half months of uninterrupted apple bread! But the stockpile is already dwindling, and soon there will be no more apples. Thankfully when that happens, I can turn to my cupboards and grab a can of fig preserves or applesauce to use in lieu of the fresh fruit. The bread will survive. And maybe, just maybe we'll be eating it until the strawberries are in season.
Alabama Apple Bread
2 cups chopped apples (Scott's Apple Orchard)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (Elmore County)
1 1/2 cups wheat bran (Elmore County)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
3 eggs (Katie Farms, Coker)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups honey (Hewitt's Honey, Duncanville)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans (or hickory nuts*) (pecans from my yard, hickory nuts from my parents' yard)
Combine eggs, oil, vanilla, and honey in a large mixing bowl. Sift together dry ingredients in separate bowl. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together. Fold in apples and nuts. Pour in greased 9" loaf pan and bake for about 1 1/2 hours at 300 degrees (Because this bread uses honey instead of sugar, it's best to bake it more slowly at a lower temperature than most breads, so that it won't burn).
*Sometime in November, my Mom brought us a ton of shelled hickory nuts from her yard (you can see in the photo below that she filled up a CoolWhip container, which unfortunately I cannot quantify. I'm guessing it was easily 5 or more cups). If you have ever tried to crack hickory nuts, you know that it is quite a chore. She spent about 10 hours preparing the nuts for us - cracking the shells with pliers, then meticulously picking out the meat (by the way, she also shelled a comparable amount of pecans for us, which has led me to dub her the "nutwallah" in true Indian fashion). The nuts are a little bitter when eaten fresh, but work well in baked items. If you're interested in doing a little nut foraging, hickory nuts usually fall off their trees in the autumn, and are also a favorite of squirrels. So make sure you get to them before those pesky rodents do! There's a great article in Mother Earth News about hickory nuts if you're interested - including the best way to crack these suckers open and how to use them.
Reader Comments (2)
Yum! I will surely try this recipe. I am new to this site, I am glad to see there is an apple orchard nearby.
Sounds delicious and healty too. I will definitely give it a try. Thanksso much!