Banana Oat Zucchini Bread

As I am just recently beginning to both garden and cook a lot, I've noticed that my cooking follows the trend of what's getting ripe in the garden. So if you've noticed a lot of zucchini recipes, that's because I have tons. I planted 4 hills of zucchini, and I think all 4 plants lived, maybe even 5. Now I am giving the stuff away I have so much. It's not even the quantity so much as it is that I just don't know what to do with it! I thought planting four hills was being moderate, but when I have 8 zucchini on the counter, I just get overwhelmed. And Fannie only has about 5 recipes for it.

So, it was off to Pinterest for some inspiration. I searched for zucchini bread and found this AMAZING blog post that lists 50 zucchini bread recipes. That's right, 50! I looked at some and decided I wanted to make all 50. Then I put it on my favorites toolbar so I can find it easily. So check out the link if you need to use up zucchini or just want to be amazed at the long list of breads that you can make with zucchini. Banana bread? Yep. Lemon poppyseed cake? Yep. Cheesy bread? Of course. Basically, you can name any kind of bread or cake, and just put a bird on it zucchini in it.

Since there were so many I wanted to make, it was hard to pick just one. But I had an overripe banana hanging out on the counter, so I chose the banana bread recipe .

Here's my adapted version:

• 3/4 cups white flour 
• 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup organic sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup coconut oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 ripe bananas mashed
• 3 cups shredded zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 and oil a loaf pan.
 
In large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and oats.

In a second bowl combine sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla and mashed banana.

Pour sugar mixture into flour mixture and mix to combine.

Add in zucchini and mix until well incorporated.

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until bread pulls away from sides of pan and an inserted toothpick is removed clean.

My batter seemed the right consistency, but for some reason, my bread really didn't cook that well. I cooked it for 40 minutes and a toothpick came out clean--almost floated out on the oil in it. I haven't baked with coconut oil, so maybe someone more familiar with it would be able to tell me. But it was super 'greasy' feeling. It looked a little soft still, but the toothpick was practically falling through the bread it was so oily. And even after 45 minutes, when I took it out, it was still kind of moist feeling. I slid a knife in to make sure, and it came out really oily as well.

Anyway, the bread smelled delicious and my son couldn't wait to eat it. I let it cool about 30 minutes before cutting it, releasing all the wonderful fragrances. Seriously, this one smelled like a coconut and banana wonderland. It tasted very good, but after my son asked me what the green things were, I finally told him and then he didn't want to eat it. Bummer.

Also, when I sliced it open, I found that it was still moist and a bit gummy inside. So I'm not sure how to tell if it's done since the knife & toothpick both failed me. 

The original blog pics look like the bread is much more well done (and you can't see many green flecks, which makes me suspicious)! I'd recommend an extra 5-10 minutes beyond the 45 if you are using coconut oil. I guess that was the problem? Not sure, as I followed the recipe almost exactly, only cutting the sugar some and adding whole wheat. It tasted excellent, but needed more time cooking. To fancy it up, I made cream cheese frosting for it, which distracted from the gumminess. And after it had cooled completely, it wasn't gummy but was still a bit too heavy/dense.

Overall, I would recommend this recipe, because it tasted quite delicious. But maybe add a couple tablespoons of extra flour or squeeze your zucchini to make it extra dry for baking.