Zucchini Bread

For some reason, in the midst of my mom's holiday baking extravaganza, the thought of zucchini bread crossed my mind.  I don't remember why or how or when but after that, it would not leave my head until I made it.  So I went to the supermarket, bought 3 zucchini and searched online for a good recipe.  I went through blogs and websites and google and while I found a fair amount of results, nothing seemed quite right.

Some recipes used way too much oil, others had hardly any zucchini, others seemed like they would turn out bland, so I decided to make up my own.

The best recipe I found was this one on epicurious for sweet potato and zucchini bread.  The reviews for it are very good so my recipe is very very loosely based off this one.  

When it came out of the oven I was skeptical of how it had turned out because I made so many changes and substitutions to the original recipe.   This is pretty much the first time I have strayed so far from what is written.

So after it cooled I cut off a piece and was pleasantly surprised at how moist, fragrant and flecked with green the inside was.  I tried a piece and..... it's so good! (If I do say so myself...) Especially because it's fairly guilt free- just a 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1 1/3 cup sugar and almost half whole wheat flour. I had some extra grated zucchini left over so in my next post I'll show you how I used it.   I hope you enjoy this bread as much as I do.

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 whole wheat flour
• 3  teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• pinch of ground ginger
• pinch of ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups grated zucchini

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Sift first  9 ingredients into medium bowl. Beat sugar, olive oil, applesauce, eggs and vanilla to blend in large bowl. Mix in zucchini. Add dry ingredients and stir well.

Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Cool bread in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around bread to loosen. Turn out onto rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature.)