Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Spiced Zucchini Nut Bread


What do you do with a foot-long zucchini (I wish I had taken a photo!)? Well, I shredded every bit of it and used it to make muffins and bread. The nice thing about a zucchini that large (especially diameter-wise) is that it's easy to maintain a good grip for the job of shredding.

I was torn between making a more-on-the-sweeter-side cake with cocoa powder and chips or making a bread, sans chocolate but spiced up. Maybe I'll go the cake route another day. Another day, another zucchini ...


The bread batter ... doesn't look like much here in the bowl:


It's a wet, gooey batter ... easy to work with:


And turns out nicely in the end:


Note: Lots of variations are possible with this bread, including different flours, spices, sweeteners (honey, agave, etc.), fats (olive oil, butter, etc.), nuts, and more.

Spiced Zucchini Nut Bread

1 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves

3 medium (or 2 large) eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup extra virgin coconut oil, melted (or olive oil)
1/4 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups finely shredded zucchini
1/2 cup walnuts & pecans, chopped and lightly toasted

First, lightly toast the nuts in a 350-degree oven. Takes about 5 minutes or so.

Line a loaf pan with parchment paper. Keep the oven on at 350 degrees.

Mix together the flours, baking soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl.

Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl. Add the oil, yogurt, and vanilla. Then add the zucchini and nuts. (I found it much easier to incorporate the zucchini at this stage, to the wet batter, instead of in the last step.)

Add the flour mixture to the wet batter, stirring well just until incorporated.

Pour/spoon the mixture into the lined loaf pan and spread it out evenly. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (Mine took 43 minutes.) Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then finish cooling on a rack.


Zucchini Muffins

I used the Zucchini Muffins recipe that's in Erin McKenna's Babycakes book, the same book from which I adapted my Spelt Blueberry Muffins post. It's similar to the blueberry muffins, using spelt flour, coconut oil, and agave. But it incorporates the shredded zucchini and some spices.




OK, that's enough zucchini for one day! Time for some chocolate ...

1 comment:

Steve said...

Ah, continuing to trick me into eating vegetables! I love it 😃