Monday, August 24, 2009

Got Zucchini?

I'm always on the hunt for good recipes to use my plethora of zuccs in. I usually end up going back to my three main dishes: Fried Zucchini, Zucchini Soup, and Zucchini Bread. The first two are pretty set recipes, but as you know, Zucchini Bread has more variations than Imelda Marcos has shoes. I love tasting all the different varieties I come across--especially those that include chocolate in some form--but I got creative the other day and combined 3 different recipes into one, and I think it's the best Zucchini Bread I've EVER eaten! It's really more like a cake, and seriously, who doesn't like cake??? So here it is, along with a couple of pics. If you venture to try this recipe, leave a comment. I'd love to know how you liked it!

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups grated zucchini
1 pt. fresh blueberries
3 T. flour
3 T. butter
1/3 C. brown sugar

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and soda together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl.
4. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well.
5. Stir in zucchini until well combined.
6. Carefully fold in the blueberries, pour batter into prepared pans and place in the middle rack of oven.
8. Meanwhile, using a pastry cutter, combine flour, butter and brown sugar to resemble a course meal.
9. Halfway throught cooking time (about 30 minutes), sprinkle sugar mixture onto the bread & put back in the oven for another 20-30 minutes or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
10.Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool...if you can wait that long.

I've seen anything from strawberries, bananas or cranberries to nuts, coconut or chocolate chips in lieu of the blueberries. Use whatever sounds good or whatever you have on hand! The blueberries really were fabulous, though!

4 comments:

Fiddlefish said...

YUMMY!! I just made bread last night -- used a zucchini bread recipe, but put in shredded yellow squash instead. Tastes the same.

Jonesy said...

I saw that on your post...I don't know why I never considered yellow squash bread. It's basically the same as zucchini. Nice to know!

Ardie said...

This looks great!
Here's another one to try if you want. It's called "Black Out Chocolate Zucchini Cake"

Make cake 1 day ahead so you can cool it in the fridge (even better the 2nd day).
Ingredients:
1pkg devils food cake mix
1/4 C oil
3 eggs
1 1/4 C water
1 large pkg Chocolate Instant Pudding
1 pkg semi sweet chocolate chips
1 C zucchini peeled and grated
Mix all together, pour into pan and bake for 55 mins at 350 deg. F.

Jonesy said...

Can't wait to try it, Ardie!!! Tara, did you see this one????