simple zucchini bread

i've never tried baking with zucchini before. i love making carrot cake, banana or pumpkin breads and have tried strawberry bread, but never zucchinis, so i was pretty excited to test it out for the first time.

these came out super delicious, light and just enough sweet (in fact, next time i might try with a little less sugar and using applesauce instead of some of the oil)

i loosely based my recipe on a combination of our family banana bread recipe, smittenkitchen zucchini bread and thekitchn zucchini bread recipes (both sites are pretty terrific resources for new, delicious and beautiful recipes)


zucchini bread
makes 24 muffins (or in our case, 12 muffins and a small heart cake pan)

ingredients

2 1/2 cups shredded zucchini 
3 c.  flour
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
1 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 c. olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. raisins, walnuts, chocolate chips, or mix (optional. i didn't use any additions as i wanted to test how the recipe came out as is, but after devouring 2 muffins in 10 minutes, i've decided walnuts would really make this bread perfect)

*preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease pans

*grate the zucchini (i don't recommend draining any of the excess water from the zucchini. i did originally and ended up needing to add a little extra water to my batter, which I'm sure i wouldn't have ended up needing if i just used the natural moisture from the zucchini)

*mix all dry ingredients in large mixing bowl; flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices + salt

* whisk all the wet ingredients; eggs, sugars, oil and vanilla in a separate bowl

*add the zucchini to the wet mixture

*stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until well combined
my batter looked the slightest bit dry, so don't hesitate to add a little extra oil, applesauce or water

*add any nuts or raisins and incorporate into mixture

*pour mixture into pans or muffin tins

*bake 35-40 minutes. a loaf or cake pan may take longer. and even though my testing knife came out clean after 25 minutes, the "tester" muffin looked a little too wet + dense in the middle. the extra 10 minutes made all the difference as they came out fluffy and perfect. our small cake pan stayed in for about 50 minutes. i really just waited till the top started to get a beautiful golden brown color.

 

note: sorry for the lame pictures. but in all honesty, the grated zucchini just looks more mushy than firm and beautiful and the batter just looks weird, so the end results are much more satisfying to post.