I recently got a whole box of cookbooks from a friend, including The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking. Honestly not sure what  makes the Jesuits specifically amazing bread people other than they’ve been practicing for a long time, but the first recipe I tried was a keeper! I actually doubled it, and was glad to have more to stash in the freezer for a pretty soon later! I hate carrot cake that has chunks in it, so I’m not sure why this bread, with all its texture, does work for me.

Ingredients (for one loaf):

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (actually my cinnamon is from the same friend!)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (the book didn’t specify, and I had about half that much left in a bag of light sugar, filled the rest with dark)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup oil (I used canola)

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9×5″ bread pan. In a medium bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder and soda, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, eggs, applesauce, and oats.

Add the raisins and oil.

Stir in the flour mixture until just combined.

Transfer the mixture to the bread pan and bake for 1 hour. One of my bread pans is an 8×4, so I put the bread pans on a bigger pan in case there was too much batter and it overflowed, but that didn’t turn out to be an issue.

I let them cool for ~10 minutes in the pan, then carefully ran a knife around the inside of the bread pans and turned the loaves out to cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.

A delicious way to get some fruit and whole grains into your carbs!

Brother Leikus’s Oatmeal Quick Bread

From The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking.

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup oil

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9×5″ bread pan. In a medium bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder and soda, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, eggs, applesauce, and oats. Add the raisins and oil. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Transfer the mixture to the bread pan and bake for 1 hour. Let them cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then carefully run a knife around the inside of the bread pans and turn out to cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.