Apple Fritter Bread is filled with chunks of fresh apple, ribbons of cinnamon-sugar, and topped with boiled cider glaze. Nearly dessert, yet breakfast-appropriate. A loaf makes a wonderful homespun gift for a deserving friend or neighbor.
Confession: I can’t stop making and eating this Apple Fritter Bread. It holds all the best things about baking season. It’s hearty and sweet; uncomplicated to make and it fills your home with delicious aromas. It’s jam-packed with chunks of fresh apple and ribbons of cinnamon sugar. I have plans to make several more loaves just to give to friends and neighbors. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t love a hefty loaf covered with cider glaze and chopped pecans.
The first layer.
First, mix up the simple batter. It’s the buttery, vanilla-scented base that will support and hold all of those tasty additions throughout the loaf. You can use a hand mixer for this task. Layer 1/3 of the batter into the bottom of a 9×5 inch greased loaf pan.
Next, toss some chopped apples in cinnamon-sugar. You’ll need 3 large or 4 small apples for this recipe. Use practically any apple you have on hand. This bread is very forgiving. Granny Smith is my preference for baking, Gala, Honeycrisp, and Pink Lady work well, too.
Next, sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over the apples. I added some chopped pecans, which could be optional. However, the nutty, sweet flavor of pecans is so good in this bread!
More layers!
Continue the layering process two more times with the remaining batter and ingredients. Doing this creates ribbons of brown sugar throughout the loaf.
The final layer will be apples and cinnamon-sugar. The top bakes to deep golden and sugar crusted while the interior becomes moist with the juices from the baked apple chunks.
Let the bread cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning it out. Cool on a wire rack before adding the glaze.
A magic ingredient.
Here’s one of my favorite fall ingredients of all time! Boiled cider imparts tart apple flavor. It’s pure concentrated apple in a bottle. You can find it for purchase online from . Mixed with powdered sugar, it makes an incredibly flavorful glaze. However, you can still make a cider glaze without it. Use regular bottled apple cider or apple juice in its place.
Top it off.
Drizzle the glaze over the bread. This loaf won’t crown much on top, because it is dense with all those apples, pecans, and sugar. This inhibits the middle from puffing up, but doesn’t affect the tenderness of the crumb.
Add a few more pecans on top, if you’re feeling a little extra.
This Apple Fritter Bread gets its inspiration from – you guessed it! – fried apple fritters. Which are absolutely delicious but slightly more involved with all that frying. (Find my – they are worth the effort!) However, this bread doesn’t require much attention, and it is well-suited to those who want to cozy up with a book for an hour while it bakes.
Apple Fritter Bread with Boiled Cider Glaze
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Equipment
- 1 9×5 inch loaf pan
Ingredients
Bread batter
Apple mixture
Cinnamon-brown sugar mixture
Glaze and toppings
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Coat a 9×5 nonstick loaf pan flour-based baking spray (such as Baker’s Joy or Pam). Alternatively, grease and flour the pan.
Bread batter
- In the bowl of an electric mixer (I used a hand-held mixer) cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well with each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract.
Apple mixture
Cinnamon-brown sugar mixture
Assembly
- Spread 1/3 of the bread batter into the bottom of the prepared loaf pan. Top with 1/3 of the apples, and sprinkle over 1/3 of the cinnamon-brown sugar mixture.
- Spread another 1/3 of the batter over the apples and brown sugar mixture. Do this with two spoons, placing dollops of batter over the sugared surface (see image in blog post), and then spread evenly. Top with another 1/3 of apples and another 1/3 of the brown sugar mixture.
- Finally, spread the last 1/3 of batter over the last layer (dolloping as before) and finish with the final 1/3 of apples and 1/3 of brown sugar mixture.
- Bake for 1 hour, or until the top is deeply browned and crusty and a toothpick tester inserted near the center comes out clean.
- Let the bread loaf stand for about 10 minutes before turning it out to a cooling rack.
