Heather says:
It may be zucchini season where you live -assuming you’re in North America– if not, it soon will be. While we love zucchini in lots of ways, the CSA is outpacing our ability to eat this awesome vegetable.
Ray, who is unfortunately allergic to wheat, mentioned how his grandmother used to make zucchini bread and how much he loved it and I remember loving when my mother made zucchini bread one summer when our garden went nuts.
Challenge accepted.
Last week’s attempt was tasty, but too cake-like to publish and if you’re going for a gluten-free version there was a little grit from the non-wheat flours. If you prefer a cake-like crumbly zucchini bread, all you have to do to this recipe is increase the flour by one cup and add an extra egg. Not recommended for gluten-free flours, the flour to oil ratio is what got rid of the gritty feel.
The good thing about quick breads and muffins is that the recipes are fairly forgiving. If your oven isn’t spot on the temperature department or you eyeball the amount of vanilla or only have large eggs instead of jumbo, it’s all going to be fine. Quick breads and muffins are not precision baking and are perfect if you’re just trying to find your baking legs. You can play around a little with the recipe and have good, repeatable results and not worry about the product failing miserably.
Now there are some things to keep in mind. You can’t wait all day after mixing the dry and wet ingredients as there is some chemistry magic happening. If you wait too long, your baking soda will finish reacting before the batter can set and you’ll have dense little loaves or muffins. You don’t have to worry about tossing in some raising or nuts or swapping out some butter for oil etc. Experiment and write down your results.
If wheat is not an issue in your household, just swap out both non-wheat flours for 2 cups of all purpose flour. (In case I phrased that oddly that’s two cups of flour total, not two cups for each cup, capiche?)
: Gluten-Free Zucchini Bread
: Dense, moist zucchini bread
 
- 1 cup Pillsbury Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour
- 1 cup Bisquik Gluten Free Baking Mix
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon -more if you prefer
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup butter – room temperature
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups grated zucchini
- 1 cup walnut pieces (optional)
 
- Preheat the oven to 350F
- Grate the zucchini if it isn’t already
- Combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl.
- In a larger bowl cream the butter and sugar together and stir in the oil. Mix until fully incorporated and no obvious lumps exist.
- Lightly beat the eggs and stir them into the wet mixture, with 1 tsp vanilla.
- Quickly work to add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet. As soon as the batter is moist, stir in the grated zucchini and walnuts, if you choose.
- Pour the batter into two 9×5 loaf pans and bake for 50 -55 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 50 minute(s)
Enjoy!
When my garden’s zucchini took over my life, I grated it into bread sized portions, vacuum sealed it and froze it. Zucchini is typically not a vegetable that can withstand the freezer, but if you are going to use for bread (or tasty little fried zucchini patties-add some onion, an egg, parm cheese, salt, pepper and fry in butter), than the damage done by the freezing has minimal impact on the final product.
Funny how a vegetable that can produce such a high yield, is notoriously difficult at long term storage.
That’s a great tip, thank you.