In the name of science, we took our fellow editor’s experiment to the Betty Crocker Kitchens. For proper comparison, we made two loaves: one following the recipe as written with ½ cup butter, and the second with ¼ cup butter and ¼ applesauce.
The question that we wanted to answer was: “Would the loaf with the applesauce substitute still hold its own in a side-by-side comparison?”
Even with only ¼ cup butter, we found it was possible to use the creaming method, i.e. mixing butter and sugar until fluffy. This is one of the first steps in this recipe, and it’s crucial for a well-mixed batter that bakes up into a loaf with nice texture and shape. The action creates lots of tiny holes in the butter so that when you add the wet ingredients, and then the dry ingredients, they easily integrate into the butter-sugar mixture. Adding the ingredients in this order helps rule out the risk of over-mixing your dry ingredients, which can lead to gluten development and a chewy, tough loaf. Our batter turned out moist, well-mixed and not overworked, and it baked up into a lovely, golden-brown loaf that looked no different from the one baked with ½ cup butter. (Remember that picture at the top of the story?)
The answer to our question turned out to be a resounding yes! But one question remained (the most important one!): How would it taste?