Yesterday was baking day again, and Nora requested this Hazelnut Applesauce Bread. It’s the 3rd time I’ve made it–a hit! Nora enjoys it for breakfast, topped with a mixture of her morning coconut oil mixed with a bit of butter.

The recipe calls for baking it in a small loaf pan, but I find it a little unwieldy to store and cut in that form so I tried baking it in a wide shallow baking pan instead. It came out nicely. With all of the fat, the edges get kind of browned and crispy. Mmmm.

This recipe is an adaptation of Candice’s Low Carb Almond Flour Applesauce Spice Pound Cake [11/13: her site has moved and that recipe seems to be gone: http://tmstrevival.wordpress.com/]. If you look at her recipes, she always uses Splenda or another no-carb sweetener. We try not to add any of those sweeteners to Nora’s diet. It’s unclear whether they interfere with ketosis for her, and we don’t want to take any chances. I also don’t care for their flavor (they always have a bitter edge to me). I try to choose recipes with naturally sweet and delicious ingredients so that extra sweeteners are not necessary. Nora is not accustomed to sweet things anymore, so this bread (and her other baked goods) taste sweet enough to her. We call it “applesauce bread” for the sales pitch, and the applesauce does add a nice touch of sweetness, with the nutty taste and cinnamon flavors as well. We are going for flavor, not sweetness.

The original recipe calls for almond flour. The first time I made it, I was out of almond flour but had ample hazelnut flour. Did you know that 99% of all hazelnuts grown in the United States come from the the Willamette Valley in Oregon–right here where we make our home? And when you move to Oregon, you learn that hazelnuts are also called “filberts.” Know the local code to find the local deliciousness.

It is possible to substitute any nut flours for these kinds of recipes, but remember to always re-check the nutritional information. To boost the fiber and cut a little more carbs, I also substituted 1/4 cup flax meal for some of the nut flour, which I do with most recipes.

One additional word of caution for keto-families, which applies to all of my recipes with nutritional information: Make sure to re-calculate nutritional information for the ingredients that you use if they are different from mine. I use Bob’s Red Mill nut and seed flours. Check the nutritional information for the applesauce you use and make sure it is unsweetened. If you are grinding your own nut flours (which you can do in a coffee grinder), you can weigh the quantities to be sure of your measurements. I am measuring things in cups here, but as you know that creates more room for error. If you measure according to the recipe, weigh, and calculate based on weight you will get more precise nutritional information for the recipe that you feed your child.

I also use an online recipe analyzer because we don’t use a keto-calculator (we are on a “modified” keto diet without as much rigor as administered by most neurologist’s offices). My nutritional labels are for your reference to determine if you want to try a recipe.

Hazelnut Applesauce Bread

Hazelnut Applesauce Bread. Nutritional analysis from www.caloriecount.com

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
5 large eggs
1/3 cup UNSWEETENED apple sauce
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1.75 cups Hazelnut Meal/Flour
0.25 cups flaxseed meal
1 T Organic Coconut Flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350F

Grease & flour a 8”x4” loaf pan with butter and dust with coconut flour.

In small bowl combine hazelnut flour, coconut flour, baking powder and spices. Set aside.

Beat butter with an electric mixer until fluffy and smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla extract and apple sauce and continue to beat until smooth.

Add hazelnut flour mixture to egg mixture. Mix on low until combined. Then turn mixer up to high and beat until smooth.

Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake at 350°F for about 1 hour or until done. (When I made it in the wide shallow pan, it cooked for about 45 minutes).

Let cool in pan for about 10 minutes then take out and and cool on wire rack. If you don’t take it out of the pan, it will solidify in there and will break if you take it out when cold. There is a lot of butter in this recipe and it does solidify.

Note that 1 serving is 16 g (I cut and weigh each piece of bread). It’s a rather small but dense serving. The recipe creates 48 servings at 16 g each, so it’s wise to freeze half of a loaf because it will get moldy before we use all of the 48 servings (unless the rest of the family is eating it too!)

A 16 g serving contains:
0.7 g net carbs
0.8 g fiber
1.4 g protein
6.2 g fat