rather than oil? I made carrot cake with applesauce and its cooked all the way through but the cake just looks mushy-er and when you eat it, the texture is just different I cant explain it. I guess I'm just used to boxed cakes not stratch.

I have an excellent scratch carrot cake recipe which uses a lot of oil, I substituted 1/2 applesauce once & it was not nearly as moist.