Zucchini Bread

Fall is the season of breads and the second most popular (the first being pumpkin, of course) is zucchini bread. While I love zucchini, previous to the day I made this batch of bread, I couldn't seem to get it right.  My zucchini breads were always dry and kind of bland/gross.

I used browsed over two different recipes and mixed and matched/added ingredients as I saw fit. If you're going to experiment with any dessert, I would suggest a bread as it is near impossible to really ruin a loaf. No matter what you add (nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit, etc.) somehow it always works.

Moreover, I am one of those people that wants my dessert breads to be somewhat healthy, so I always go for a whole flour or an alternative like almond or tapioca flour (makes it gluten free), substitute sugar for honey on occasion, do melted butter versus canola oil (you can also try coconut oil) and add kefir or yogurt most of the time.

The recipes I improvised from are here and here.

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded zucchini

3 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup melted butter

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

3/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup chopped almonds

Directions:

• Grease loaf pans and preheat oven to 350º. 

• Press grated zucchini into a strainer to get some of the excess liquid out.

• Beat eggs, sugar and butter together

• Stir in all dry ingredients and then nuts.

• Add drained zucchini. Mix well.

• Pour into loaf pans and cook for 40 minutes (my oven gets ridiculously hot, you may need to cook it for up to 60 minutes).