Applesauce Carrot Bread with Pecan Streusel

Each Thursday, Emily Vikre (a.k.a fiveandspice) will be sharing a new way to love breakfast -- because breakfast isn't just the most important meal of the day. It's also the most awesome.

Today: A genius breakfast cake, born of indecision. 

I’m going to come clean about this bread (which really is more cake than bread, but that’s purely semantics, right?). This is a breakfast treat born of indecision. I wish I could say that in a moment of creative genius I had intentionally thought of how applesauce cake and carrot cake are cut of the same cloth and that the amalgamation of the two would yield something really wonderful because, in fact, this is true. But, really I just couldn’t decide if I wanted to make applesauce bread or carrot bread.  

I waffled back and forth about it for a full two weeks because these are the types of decisions that cannot be made lightly. And then when I finally had an hour to bake and I still couldn’t decide between the two, I decided to try using both applesauce and carrots. And add a pecan streusel while I was at it because, why not? Turns out indecision can occasionally generate brilliance. Of course applesauce and shredded carrots have always been meant to find each other and to settle down with cinnamon and ginger and plenty of brown sugar and pecans in one absurdly moist (downright squidgy), richly spiced, brilliantly autumnal bread-cake.  Of course.  

I accidentally took my loaf out of the oven a little too soon, so part of the middle was not quite done (hazards of absurd moistness). My mother, who was over to help watch the baby while I baked, snuck some bites before I had a chance to put the bread back in the oven, and she declared that even half-baked it was one of the best things she’d ever eaten. I decided to take all the credit.

Applesauce Carrot Bread with Pecan Streusel

Makes 1 loaf

Pecan streusel

1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cold, salted butter, cut into small chunks

Applesauce carrot bread

2 cups all-purpose flour (using part or even all whole wheat also works)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup coarsely shredded carrot 

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.

Photos by Emily Vikre