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Sunday, August 3, 2008

Baking Fool


I have been a busy bee this weekend. Not only did I paint our entire pantry (I refinished that hardwood a couple of weeks ago), I went to Costco, the grocery store, Petco, weeded the gardens, cleaned the house, did about a billion loads of laundry, organized our computer room, and baked.
I baked a lot. Well, a lot for me at least.

I had three over-ripe bananas that I needed to use, and due to the bounty of my vegetable garden, had tons of zucchini. You know what that means?! Banana bread, and even better: Zucchini bread!

This is my mother in-law's recipe. Ssssh, don't tell her I posted it here. It's very good and rich because it's made with brown sugar rather than the traditional white sugar. When it's fully baked, I assure you it isn't burnt. It just browns up due to the sugar. I think this would be really tasty if you used raisins in the batter, but my husband forbid me. He can't seem to understand that sometimes, variating from the norm is OK! I didn't want to give him a heart attack by changing his mom's recipe. So, no raisins this time.

Now, I just need to get my very sore and tired butt off this chair so I can go enjoy some warm zucchini bread. Oh, and if anyones know what else I could do with zucchini, that would be great.

Zucchini Bread
from: Pachey's mother in-law Lynn

3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder

1. Mix eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl until creamy.
2. Mix all dry ingredients in a small bowl.
3. Slowly add dry ingredients to egg mixture and stir until combined.
4. Fold in zucchini.
5. Pour into two prepared loaf pans and bake at 325 degrees for an hour.
The picture below looks funny because someone (husband) snuck some bites off my piece before I noticed.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

You mentioned a desire for additional recipes using zucchini... I made this last week and everyone who has had some really liked it and so did I. enjoy

Chocolate-Nut Zucchini Cake

3 squares unsweetened chocolate
3 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups canola oil
3 cups finely grated zucchini
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

Melt chocolate over hot, not boiling water. Let cool. Preheat oven to 350.

Grease well and flour a 10" tube pan.

Sift flour with baking powder, soda and salt; set aside.

In large bowl with electric mixer at high speed, beat eggs until thick and light. Gradually add sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add oil and cooled chocolate; beat until well blended.

At low speed, add sifted dry ingredients, mixing until smooth.

Add grated zucchini and nuts; stir until well blended.

Turn batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour and 15 minutes or until surface springs back when pressed lightly with fingertip.

Cool in pan on wire rack 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool thoroughly on wire rack.

Before serving, if desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar or make glaze.