If you're staring at a countertop or refrigerator draw brimming with zucchini, cursing your past self for planting so many darn zucchini plants, then welcome to the club! Luckily, carbs solve many of life's problems, so today I want to share this Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread that will serve to lighten your literal and metaphorical zucchini load.
Recipe here, and more information after the jump. I’ve been on the internet long enough to know that the most common gripe with food blogs and online recipes is that the blogger rambles on for too long before sharing the recipe. But if you happen to enjoy rambles, there will be some below!
📖 Recipe
Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup applesauce
- ¼ cup melted coconut oil
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups shredded zucchini toweled off and rung out to remove excess moisture
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Grease loaf pan with butter or oil, set aside.
- Add whole wheat flour, oats, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon to a medium bowl and mix well to combine.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together: eggs, applesauce, melted coconut oil, honey, and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients, stirring until combined and taking care to not overmix.
- Add shredded zucchini and fold in, again being careful to not overmix.
- Pour mixture into prepared loaf pan and level with a spatula.
- Bake for 55-65 minutes or until a knife comes out with no gooey residue. This will depend on your oven -- I’ve found 60 minutes is the sweet spot for me.
- Cool for 10 minutes, then slice and serve!
Lately, I find myself turning to making baked goods with zero added sugar while not skimping on flavor and deliciousness. Ever since our daughter started eating solid foods -- we chose to do baby led weaning mostly with her -- I want her to be able to eat everything I make. And while she has had ice cream here and there, I’m not looking to have her inhaling sugar on a daily basis, ya know?
Faced with the usual glut of summer squash, I knew I wanted to make a yummy zucchini bread that she could munch on for snacks but that would be equally delicious for the adults of the house for a decadent breakfast.
Enter, whole wheat garden zucchini bread! I fiddled with this recipe from Baby Foode to account for what we had on hand, and added some oats to make them a little heartier for a growing toddler’s tummy. I always advocate for draining and squeezing excess moisture out of shredded zucchini when baking with it to ensure your bread isn't a soggy mess (been there, still delicious though!). It's worth the little bit of extra effort, I promise.
"Shoot, I don't have any zucchini but I have lots of yellow squash! Can I use that instead?!" Sure! You can also check out the Yellow Squash Bread recipe I shared. It's similar, with a few minor tweaks. Oooh just writing about all of this baking has me *extremely* excited for the new season of Great British Baking Show on Netflix that's coming out this NEXT WEEK. Wow, Initially I wrote "this fall" but then Googled to fact check myself and it actually comes out Friday, September 24, 2021. I know what my Friday night plan is! Pizza & Netflix. Wow, very exciting news.
Where was I? Oh yes! Zucchini bread! This freezes beautifully, and that's honestly what I do with pretty much everything I bake these days. When we lived in Santa Monica, we only had a little freezer and never had room to store anything in there, so I usually ended up sharing half of whatever I baked with our neighbors (miss you guys terribly!). Now, armed with a regular freezer, an old fridge/freezer down in the basement, and a chest freezer, my motto is FREEZE EVERYTHING!!!!!! It makes my life easier because I get to cook/bake once but we can enjoy the goodies for months.
If this sounds like a good idea, I'd highly recommend flash freezing. BHG says that:
For the home cook, flash freezing refers to the practice of freezing individual pieces of food separately (usually spread out on a baking sheet or tray), then packing the frozen food in airtight containers for longer storage. The first step of this process keeps individual pieces of food from fusing together during freezing. Flash freezing allows the cook to thaw and use just the amount of food needed, rather than thawing larger amounts of the food all at once.
BHG "how to flash freeze food"
Flash freezing is my new religion. We worship at the alter of the freezer gods and our refrain is, "PRAISE BE TO FREEZERS FOR YOU MAKE MY LIFE 1000X EASIER. AMEN." It's cool, I went to Catholic school for 14 years, I can jest about minor culinary sacrilege. Please don't come at me and tell me I'm going to burn in hell for all eternity! 🙂
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