With the Light and Tasty column today we present you a selection of sweet leavened products. As light as possible, as per our column’s ‘statute’. 😊 Since I really love sweet breads, I thought I would participate with a simple bread, strictly without sugar in the dough, sweetened only with an apple, a tablespoon of raisins + three teaspoons of honey. Here it is, I present to you my apple bread:

To tell the truth, my initial idea was to use only the apple (or rather, to be more precise: apple and cumin), because I started with the idea of trying to make a minimal version of that typical German – and Austrian and South Tyrolean – apple bread, which is usually rich in dried fruits and spiced with cinnamon and cloves.

But then during the process, I left out the cumin (a temporary abandonment; I still have the idea, and who knows, it might result in a future recipe!) but I was tempted by the addition of almonds and walnuts (just a few), and a tablespoon of raisins, just a tablespoon, which I added at the last moment to finish the meager remnants left in the bag. Yes, the kitchen of bag endings is always rampant in this house! 😄

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If you’re looking for other ideas to sweeten bread, here are three more: 👇

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Cheap
Rest time: 15 Hours
Preparation time: 15 Minutes
Portions: 20 slices
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups semolina flour
150 g liquid sourdough starter (licoli)
1 cup oat milk
1 apple (about 300 g)
4 walnuts
1 oz almonds
0.5 oz raisins
3 tsps honey

Tools

Bowl for dough rising
Pastry Board
Baking Tray
Parchment Paper

Steps

Prepare the bread dough. It’s a lightly worked dough, almost a no-knead bread:
Pour the licoli and oat milk into a bowl.
Mix well to dissolve the licoli and then add the two flours.
Mix with a spoon until you get a coarse dough.
Briefly knead with your hands, just a few minutes to better combine the dough.
Let it rise in a sheltered place (covered with plastic wrap, or inside the oven, or microwave) until it doubles. My dough took about 7 hours, but the time can vary depending on room temperature.
Once doubled, transfer the bowl to the fridge, covered, for several hours (I left it overnight, about 8 hours).
After the refrigeration time, place the dough on a floured pastry board and roll it out (while cold) with your fingertips to get a rectangle of dough (even irregular, it doesn’t have to be a perfect rectangle).
Wash the raisins and let them soak for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, peel the apple and cut it into small pieces, and crush the walnuts, breaking them coarsely.
Distribute the apple pieces, almonds, walnuts, and well-drained raisins over the dough.
Gently press everything down with the palm of your hand to adhere all the pieces to the dough.
Spread 2-3 teaspoons of honey over the filling.
Roll the dough starting from the short side of the rectangle, forming a roll with the filling inside.
Seal the roll both on top and at the two ends by gently pressing the dough.
Bake in the oven at 392°F for about 40 minutes.
👉 Check the browning of the crust and possibly protect the loaf with a sheet of foil. A useful precaution, especially if using a small oven like mine Sfornatutto, but it’s always useful when baking a filled bread, which usually requires a bit longer baking time due to the moisture from the filling.
This apple bread of mine didn’t rise much during baking, but the inside was nicely cooked, even in spots where the apples were, so I’m very satisfied with the result. 😊
Let the loaf cool slightly on a rack before slicing it.
The apple bread with walnuts and raisins is excellent for breakfast, either eaten on its own or spread with butter and honey or with cream cheese and jam.
But we also ate it during meals because – even though it has apple, honey, and raisins – it’s not sweet. 😉