Apple Spice Bread

Tea Time and Fine China

Tea Time

For this spring semester, I am auditing a life drawing class, along with a friend of mine, at our local community college. So, every Wednesday for the next few weeks you can find me standing behind a rickety easel jockeying for a decent sight-line of the model with a class of Zoomers. Each week everyone assumes approximately the same spot in the class as if we were in grade school with assigned seats. However, returning to the room after a break last week, I discovered that a late-arriving student had set up directly in front of my easel completely blocking my view. I was forced to move next to a couple that, I now realize, spend their time giggling softly and “correcting” their partner’s drawings. Despite this minor distraction, it is fun to be around a younger generation.

For most of the students, this is their first life drawing class and some seem to have aspirations of transferring to a four-year school to study art. We begin each class with a series of quick two-minute poses and then switch to twenty-minute poses for the balance of the time. The instructor provides certain guidelines each week, but my friend and I approach each drawing from our own background. Depending on where you are situated, particular poses may seem awkward, but being forced to tackle that view improves your skills. You can either rise to the occasion and perhaps surprise yourself with the result or waste that pose. It may seem counterintuitive, but one benefit of the class is facing the limited time restraints for each pose and capturing the movement of the figure with minimal lines. Looking back on the work after class it is instructive to observe what has been successful and what has not. The brevity of the poses forces your brain and hand to work quickly together.

The tea cup and sugar bowl painting is based on dishes that belonged to my grandmother and were set up on the flat file of my workspace last week. After working with line drawings in class I decided to focus on color and simple shapes. I didn’t attempt to accurately capture the floral designs on the dishes but wanted to leave details up to the imagination of the viewer. Sometimes a mood is better captured with less realism, in my opinion anyway. Younger generations do not tend to purchase sets of china to use on special occasions and I can understand that, but there is something special about setting out a pretty tea cup and dessert plate for afternoon tea with a friend or even to greet your child when they come home from school.

I have been baking different versions of an apple quick bread ever since my husband recently brought home a twenty-five-pound box of apples from a friend of his who owns an orchard. It is still cold enough in our garage to store them, but I’m not entirely sure how long they will last and I am determined not to waste them. I have made applesauce, apple crisp countless times, sauteed them with venison chops, and paired them with goat cheese and caramelized onions in a grilled cheese sandwich from a recipe in the New York Times last month. They are not particularly good apples to just pick up and start eating, they are not crunchy, but that is what makes them good for baking. The apples, after being turned into homemade applesauce, make for a very moist bread but do not give the bread a distinctive flavor the way that bananas do, so a generous quantity of spices and dates give it a pop. And you will be all set for an afternoon spot of tea.

Art and photo by Vicki Smith

Apple Spice Bread

Ingredients

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 t. baking soda

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1 t. cinnamon

3/4 t. allspice

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/2 cup chopped dates

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 cups unsweetened applesauce, preferably homemade

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup plain yogurt

Butter

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a standard loaf pan with melted butter.

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix in dates. Combine wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Do not overmix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the bread comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the outside of the pan and gently shake the bread free from the pan.

Some of my neighbors will soon be getting a loaf of bread.

Thanks for reading, liking, commenting, and sharing.

Vicki

Apple Spice Bread

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