Zucchini Bread

This is the best zucchini bread you’ll ever try! Soft, moist, and speckled with sweet green flecks and your favourite add-ins, this zucchini bread will make you wish it was zucchini season every day! Trust me, you’ll be tempted to eat this whole loaf in one sitting! Keep reading to find out how to make this delicious zucchini bread!

Zucchini Bread History:

I love zucchini bread. I always have.

But actually, when I was a kid, I loved it because I 100% thought it was banana bread. I was a chocolate fiend back then, as I am now, so I was always too focused on the melty chocolate chips to have noticed a difference when I was served banana bread as opposed to zucchini bread. I was so totally convinced that they were not two separate things that I actually grew to believe that banana bread always had green flecks in it!

It wasn’t until I was probably almost 10 that I finally figured out that zucchini bread and banana bread were different. I clearly did not have very good taste buds since I never noticed the banana flavour or lack thereof.

I grew up with this recipe. It was my Zia’s recipe (Zia means aunt in Italian so that’s what we called all of my great aunts), and it was passed onto my mom along with all of her other recipes. In fact, the majority of our recipe box is either one of my Zia’s recipes or a cut-out from a magazine, food product packaging etc.

Unfortunately, my Zia passed away when I was a kid, long before I developed a passion for baking, so I never got to bake with her, at least not that I remember. She was an amazing baker and cook, so we’re all thankful that we still have these pieces of her with us today, hidden in all of these recipes.

Speaking of hidden…

My mom always made this zucchini bread for us when I was growing up, and no one ever complained about the hidden vegetables. I was never too picky as a kid and I always loved vegetables; all vegetables including the stereotypically hated broccoli and Brussel sprouts. Basically the only vegetable I was picky about were mushrooms, mostly due to their weird rubbery texture when cooked, and even now they’re still only tolerable. So having zucchini in the bread was never a problem for me. It did help though that I thought it was banana.

However, if you do have picky kids, they can definitely earn their servings of vegetables without even realizing it with this zucchini bread! You don’t taste the zucchini at all, and it only adds to the moisture of this delicious loaf! If they do question the green flecks, just tell them it’s green apples, food colour gone wrong, or even little pieces of luck from the leprechauns! The success of convincing them of the last one will most certainly depend on the age of the kids and how far away from St. Patrick’s Day it is!

I bet it won’t be an issue trying to convince them to eat it though, as they’ll probably be hypnotized by the sea of chocolate chips in front of them like I was.

Now, onto the recipe.

How to Make Zucchini Bread:

The best thing about this recipe is how simple it is. You can mix it about a hundred ways and still have it turn out super soft, moist, and delicious! I myself have done it at least 2 ways, and it always ends up perfect.

Not only is it simple to mix, but it has super simple ingredients too!

All that you need is:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Cinnamon
• Salt
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Eggs
• Oil
• Zucchini
• Add-ins (chocolate chips, chopped nuts, etc.)

You don’t need to do anything special to these ingredients either; no need for room temperature, whipped to stiff peaks, or for it to be at precisely 104 degrees. None of that crap. It’s perfect for when you don’t have much time to throw it together.

The only thing that takes time is baking it, which I know is impossible especially when it makes the whole house smell heavenly good! Don’t mind me impatiently waiting for the beep and drooling in front of the oven! 🙂

Dry Ingredients

You start by mixing together all of your dry ingredients. From flour to baking soda. None of the ingredients are surprising, and you should already have them all in your pantry! I find that the cinnamon adds a delightful spice to the cake that really adds to the flavour. The rest of the ingredients are common cake ingredients including leavening agents, sweetness balancers and the structure of the cake.

Wet Ingredients

Then, you mix together your wet ingredients. You can do this by whipping your eggs with the oil until it’s lighter and fluffier, then add in the zucchini. Or you can follow how I wrote it in the recipe since I find it even simpler.

This way, you mix the eggs then oil into the dry ingredients. I do this directly in my stand mixer since I don’t really like my hand mixer (it was a cheap stand-in before I got my KitchenAid so it screeches after being run for more than 2 minutes). This is actually how I discovered that this method works. I accidentally threw my dry ingredients into the stand mixer first to whisk, and didn’t feel like transferring it out or using the other mixer to whip the eggs and oil, so I just added them directly to the dry ingredients.

Once these are mixed in, you’ll find a doughy consistency that’s quite similar to cookie dough. But with oil instead of butter. Don’t worry about it being so thick though, the zucchini has A LOT of water content so it’ll thin it out to a batter consistency.

Zucchini

Now, let’s talk about that zucchini.

Wash it. Chop off the ends. Don’t peel it. Throw it in a food processor to grate it. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Add it into the dough mixture and mix until well combined, making sure to scrape down the bowl as you go.

Baking

This recipe actually makes 2 loaves. Perfect for sharing or freezing for a later date. Although, if you’re anything like my family, the first loaf won’t last long, so you might need that second loaf much sooner than you think!

Pour your batter evenly into 2 greased and floured loaf pans, and bake at 350 for 1 to 1 and 1/2 hours. The recipe actually called for 1 1/2 hrs, but after only about 40 minutes I could smell it, so I checked it about 20 minutes early and it was done, so I would recommend checking using a toothpick after an hour and going from there. You also know your oven better than I do, so bake accordingly.

Once it’s out of the oven, let it cool a bit before slicing into it! I know it can be challenging to wait after you’ve just waited for more than an hour, but it’ll save you from having it fall apart when slicing and from burning your entire mouth. Especially the chocolate chips can get very hot, so beware.

Happy Baking!

If you like cake for breakfast, you should definitely give my Banana Bread a try as well! And if you’re a fan of all things baked in a loaf pan, you need to make my Cinnamon Apple Cider Loaf Cake, it’s the moistest and softest apple cake you’ll ever taste!

Let me know in the comments what you think of this recipe! Enjoy!