Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Quick Bread

This Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Quick Bread is the perfect fall treat. Whether you eat it for breakfast or dessert, you’re probably going to need another slice! 

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Orchard season is here – and it’s my absolute favorite! Our orchard has a lot of early variety apples, so I got my first apples at the beginning of August. I’ve moved from Early Crisp to Zestar and I’m getting ready for my favorite: Honeycrisp!

Those are all fantastically crisp apples that are perfect for eating, and they’re also great for baking. I used my Early Crisp apples to make this moist and delicious Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Bread. Our whole family agreed this recipe is a must-make; my toddler wouldn’t stop demanding more and more and more!

Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Bread – the Ingredients

Most of the ingredients are pretty typical of any baked good or quick rise bread.

For your dry ingredients, you’ll need: flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder.

Wet ingredients needed include: canola or vegetable oil, two eggs, cream cheese and buttermilk. You’ll also need 2-3 fresh apples.

If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, see the substitution at the end of this post!

Why Cream Cheese? That’s Not a Common Bread Ingredient!

You’re right; most quick breads don’t have cream cheese. But this breads just needs the cream cheese. It adds a smoothness and a richness to the bread that just make the bread perfectly soft and delicious! Adding a bit of cream cheese to quick breads is a great way to add a bit of moisture and smoothness without making the batter too wet.

Preparing the Apples for the Quick Bread

To get your apples ready, you’ll need to peel, core and chop them. There are a couple of different ways to do this, and any way will work. You can just peel your apples by hand; since you only need 2 or 3 apples, this would probably be my choice so I don’t have to clean a bunch of fancy equipment.

You can also use an apple peeler or peeler/slicer/corer. I used this apple peeler this time around, just so I could show it to you. It peels the apples pretty quickly, and from there, they’re easy to slice and dice.

Make sure you dice your apples fairly small; you don’t want overly large chunks of apple in your bread. I kept my pieces about dime sized, but you could make them up to nickle sized if you want a bit bigger.

Making the Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Bread Batter 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease, spray or butter a 9×5 loaf pan and set it aside.

(Step 1) In a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer, measure canola oil, brown sugar and granulated sugar.

(Step 2) Stir sugar and oil together.

(Step 3) Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well to combine in between. Measure vanilla and stir in briefly.

(Step 4) Use a hand mixer (or your stand mixer) to beat the cream cheese into the other wet ingredients. Beat until the batter is smooth and combined.

(Step 5) Sprinkle baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg over the top of the wet ingredients. Stir briefly.

(Steps 6/7) Alternate adding buttermilk and flour to batter in two parts each, stirring in between. Add 1/4 cup buttermilk and stir. Then add 1 cup of flour and stir. Repeat with remaining 1/4 cup buttermilk and 1 cup flour.

(Step 8) Measure out 1 1/4 cups of chopped apples; set aside remaining 1/4 cup. Stir 1 1/4 cups apples into batter.

Baking the Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Bread

Pour the Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Bread batter into the greased or buttered loaf pan. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl and to smooth the top of the batter in the pan.

Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup of chopped apples over the top of the bread and press gently to set. (Optional: sprinkle the apples with a pinch of sugar and stir them before spreading over top of batter.)

Bake the apple cinnamon bread at 350 for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then remove bread from pan and place on a cooling rack (you can also just turn the loaf pan upside down and put the bread on it) to finish cooling.

Serve slightly warm. You can serve the bread slathered with butter or peanut butter, but my husband and I both agreed we didn’t think it needed a single enhancement. This bread is perfect just as it is.

No Buttermilk? Here’s How to Substitute!

I don’t often have buttermilk on hand, so I usually have to make a substitute. You can make a buttermilk substitute two ways: with white vinegar + milk or with lemon juice + milk.

To make the substitute, pour 1/2 tablespoon of either white vinegar or lemon juice into a 1/2 cup measuring cup. Fill the rest of the way with white milk. Stir and let sit for about 5 minutes before using. Use in place of buttermilk in this recipe (or any baking recipe).

When you make this Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Bread, make sure to post a pic on Instagram and tag me (@biscuitsandgrading)! Can’t wait to see it! 

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