Raisin Quick Bread from 100 Days of Real Food Cookbook

In 2010, Lisa Leake began her pledge of eating real food for 100 days with her family. By taking this pledge, she and her family steered clear of all "highly" processed foods and embraced real, whole foods and these pledge rules: No refined grains; only 100% whole grain, No refined or artificial sweeteners; only honey and maple syrup, Nothing out of a package that contains more than 5 ingredients, No factory farmed meats, No deep fried foods, No fast food and No soda; and coffee, juice and beer in moderation. 

So, why did Lisa feel the need to take a challenge? As she describes in her book, growing up in the '80's, Lisa was accustomed to eating a lot of processed foods. She regularly ate sugar cereals, white bread, fast food and many foods out of a box. As an adult and mother of 2 girls, she attempted to make healthier choices and admits that this was influenced by industry foods that were labeled as "healthy." The real turning point for Lisa was watching Michael Pollan talk about Food 101 on Oprah. This led to reading the book, "In Defense of Food," and watching the documentary "Food Inc."

Lisa's 100 day pledge has long passed but as you can imagine, there was no reason to turn back to old ways. Her family's new habits of eating had been formed and now Lisa inspires and helps countless others through her wildly popular blog to take steps toward eating real food.

Lisa's cookbook is enormously valuable for people looking to make healthier versions of what they might already be used to eating.  She provides tools to help make these changes including shopping for food, enlisting the help of your family, and even tips for affording real food. She even considers dietary needs too, including helpful conversion tables to swap out ingredients when needed.

In line with ALL of the recipes in her cookbook, this cinnamon raisin quick bread is incredibly easy to make ( it took me 20 minutes to make and would have taken less if I didn't stop to take images). My family devoured it. It's perfect for breakfast, packed in a lunchbox or for an after school snack. I also appreciated that the ingredients listed were ones I normally keep at home, so it was easy to whip this up spontaneously. And most importantly, it's made with real ingredients, no sugar or refined grains. 

Cinnamon Raisin Quick Bread
from the 100 days of Real Food Cookbook

Ingredients 

1⁄2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted, plus more for greasing the pan
1 1⁄2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1⁄2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 
1 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup unsweetened applesauce 
1⁄3 cup pure maple syrup
3⁄4 cup raisins

Gear 

5 x 9-inch loaf pan

Directions 

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a loaf pan with butter and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
3. Using a fork, mix in the eggs, applesauce, melted butter, and syrup until well combined, taking care not to overmix. Gently fold in the raisins.
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes.

Details

Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: Less than 20 minutes
Bake Time: Less than 1 hour 
Makes 1 loaf