Chocolate Chip Applesauce Cake

For as long as I can remember, my mom has been making chocolate chip applesauce cake.  It usually happens around Christmas.  On Valentine's Day we all get heart-shaped ones.  Sometimes we'll get one in the mail on birthdays.  It's kind of a lightly spiced cake with raisins, nuts, and a lot of chocolate chips.  They're really good, they ship well, and they freeze well.  We made some today to send to my brothers who didn't make it home for Christmas as well as some for ourselves.  Luckily for all you readers she was willing to share the recipe.  

Chocolate Chip Applesauce Cake

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter*

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup sifted flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 tsp. mace or allspice

1 tsp. cinnamon

3/4 cup chunky applesauce

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1 cup chocolate chips

*You can use shortening instead, but use 1 cup applesauce instead of 3/4 cup if you do.

1. Cream the butter/shortening.  Add sugar gradually and cream until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time.  Beat well.

2. Sift together dry ingredients.  Add dry ingredients alternately with the applesauce in small amounts.  Beat well after each addition until smooth.  

3. Stir in raisins, nuts, and half of the chocolate chips.

4. Pour batter into 9x5x3 loaf pan, lined on the bottom with wax paper.  Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips.  Bake at 325 about 1 hr. 15 min. or until a tester comes out clean.  Cool cake.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap or foil to store.  

Here is the batter before going into the pan.  We definitely used more chocolate chips than were called for.  And we tripled the recipe, so don't worry if it looks like there's a lot of batter here.

Here are the line loaf pans.  We also buttered the sides, but that might not be necessary.

More chocolate to top it off.

And the final product.  

Here it is before it went into my tummy.  I suggest warming it up before eating it so the chocolate chips are melted.