The discovery of zucchini bread

I'd heard great things about zucchini bread, how it's so moist and etc etc. But zucchini bread and myself never had the opportunity to cross paths until about a week or two ago, when a co-worker of mine brought some in to share.

Light, fluffy, yet moist, and fragrant with cinnamon. Basically, think back to my ravings about Pear Bread, and minus the grittiness of the pears (a subtle yet noticeable texture).

Where has zucchini bread been all my life?!!

Running away from me, I bet. 'Cuz now I'm on a zucchini bread rampage. I quickly asked for and procured the recipe, went out and got a bunch of zucchinis, and now I've made the recipe twice, with my little tweaks.

If you've never had zucchini bread before, just think of the moistest cinnamon-flavored quickbread you can imagine and that is just an inkling of the deliciousness that awaits you. I'm thinking about using zucchini's power to hold moisture into a quickbread to make the bran muffins I made recently even better....zucchini bran muffins.


Zucchini Bread (from co-worker Bill, who got the recipe from the wife of professor Steve)

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar (I used turbinado sugar, aka "Sugar in the Raw," instead)
1 cup brown sugar (I used Korean dark brown sugar)
3 beaten eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated zucchini (I used the entirety of two small zucchinis, which was more like 3 cups normal-packed zucchini, or 2 REALLY packed cups, hehe)
3 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour (I used half all-purpose flour, half whole wheat pastry flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cups nuts (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line and grease 2 standard sized loaf pans.

Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon.

(You can use a mixer if you want, or just mix everything in a bowl with a big spoon/whisk). Combine sugars, vegetable oil, and eggs together and beat until well blended. Add zucchini and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients until well blended. Fold in nuts if using.

Divide batter between two pans as evenly as possible (best done by using a kitchen scale if you've got one). Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Definitely start checking at 45 minutes. Cool in pan for a bit, use a plastic or butter knife to loosen the edges of the bread from the side of the pan, and then de-pan to cool completely on a rack.

Enjoy!

Tip: Keep the tops on the zucchini so you can use it as a finger-saver when you're grating. Toss the ends after you get every last bit of zucchini fiber grated up.

Happily grated zucchini. A medium sized grate is good for this bread, although a coarser size would work too.

Gloppy, gooey batter, awaiting metamorphosis into...

....Zucchini Bread Perfection.

Where's my coffee?

As Cookie Monster would say, "NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!"