Apple Carrot Zucchini Bread

 I am officially out of zucchini, but I had one small summer squash left, so I managed to squeeze out one more zucchini bread recipe!

 

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 c. organic sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 c. whole wheat pastry flour 
• 1/2 c. all-purpose flour  
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1-2 tsp cinnmamon
• pinch of ground cloves
• pinch of ground nutmeg
• 1 cups shredded carrots
• 1/2-1 cup shredded zucchini or yellow squash
• 1/2 cup diced, peeled apple
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease and flour an 8x4 inch loaf pan.
3. Blend butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together.
4. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg together.
5. Fold dry ingredients into wet along with carrots, squash, apples, and pecans.
6. Pour into prepared pans.
7. Bake until golden brown, approximately 1 hour, or until toothpick or knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Coconut Lime Zucchini Cake/Bread

I made this with my second-to-last zucchini on the counter, so it very well may be my last zucchini bread recipe of the year. By next year, I'll probably have a new obsession, but I have to say, it's been fun testing out many of the zucchini bread recipes (and eating them, of course) on this list of 50.  This one was for coconut lime zucchini bread, which I admit, sounded a little odd. But, I was getting lemons for the lemon bread, and I remembered there was one with lime, so I grabbed one. And I didn't want to let it go to waste, so....

Ingredients:
2 eggs
3/4 C coconut oil
3/4 C sugar
1 Tbsp lime zest
1 Tbsp lime juice
1 tsp coconut extract
2 C shredded zucchini
1 1/2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 C finely shredded coconut
GLAZE:
1/4 C sugar
2 Tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp coconut extract
 
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350
In a large mixing bowl, with a hand mixer, mix eggs, oil, sugar, lime zest, lime juice, coconut extract
In a separate bowl, combine flours, baking powder and soda
Gently stir dry ingredients into wet mixture
Stir in the zucchini
Fold in the coconut
Pour into two bread pans, or bread pan and cake pan
Bake 45 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
While bread bakes, mix together glaze ingredients
When bread is done, let cool in pan ten minutes, then move to plate.
Pour or brush glaze over bread while still hot.
 
While I liked this bread, the coconut extract was a bit strong for me. I'd probably cut it in half next time. The glaze really made the cake so much better!

Lemon Blueberry Zucchini Bread

This is yet another zucchini bread, this one from Married/Single Parent. She has a recipe for glaze as well, though I skipped that and didn't miss it a bit. This may be my favorite zucchini bread to date, though it's a tough competition with the lemon poppyseed zucchini bread. But this was the first one I've made that was cooked all the way through and not at all gummy. And those blueberries...soooo delicious.

Ingredients:
1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour, as it's softer texture)
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 c. coconut oil
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. buttermilk
Juice of 1 lemon or 2 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
1 cup grated zucchini
1 c. blueberries (I used frozen, but fresh would be great too)


Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 35o ⁰F. 
2. Grease and flour a 9×5″ loaf pan, set aside. 
3. In large bowl, blend flour, baking powder.
4. In the mixer bowl beat 2 eggs well. 
5. Then add oil and sugar, and beat on low until well combined. Add the buttermilk, lemon juice and lemon zest and blend everything well. 
6. Fold in zucchini and stir until evenly distributed in mixture. 
7. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl and blend everything together, but don’t over mix. 
8. Stir in blueberries.
9. Pour batter into prepared 9×5″ loaf pan and bake for 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. I had to bake 1 hr and 15 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack and cool completely.
10. 

Lemon Poppyseed Zucchini Bread

I've been wanting to make lemon poppyseed cake for ages. It's my all-time favorite cake, and I've never made it. So when I found this recipe on the long list of zucchini bread recipes, I immediately went out and bought a lemon. I stuck it in the door of the refrigerator and promptly forgot about it for about a month. Sadly, when I went to make this, the lemon was a bit dry. So I had to grate the 'zest' on the largest setting of my grater to make anything come off. So, it was more like lemon rind slices than zest, but of course I did not let that deter me.

I've been getting up on Saturday or Sunday morning every week and making one of the zucchini bread recipes for breakfast (although it's usually more like brunch time when we eat it). While I always use whole wheat when baking, this time, I went for the decadent cake I remembered loving so much, so I used only organic white flour. So it was definitely more like dessert than breakfast this time around.

Ingredients 
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2-3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream)
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. almond extract
2 teaspoons poppy seeds

 
Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition.
2. Stir together flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to butter mixture alternately with yogurt, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in zucchini and next remaining ingredients. Spoon batter into a buttered loaf pan.
3. Bake at 325° for 40 to 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. (I had to bake it for 1.5 hrs). Cool in pans on rack 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool for 30 minutes more.

This bread was probably my favorite of the zucchini bread recipes I've tried so far. It's way better than the ones I've made before. I'm going to add more poppy seeds next time, but other than that, this was sooo good. We just ate it plain, without frosting or cream cheese or butter. It didn't need anything.

Applesauce Walnut Bread

This is one of the few quick bread recipes in Fannie Farmer that calls for 'fresh' fruit or vegetables. I say that, but in actuality, it doesn't. But since I used fresh apples to make the applesauce for this, it's about as close as Fannie gets. A real disappointment, too, because I love making breads and cakes with fresh fruit or zucchini (that goes without saying at this point, right?)

What wasn't a disappointment was this bread. It was quite delicious, much better than the apple bread I made before. Again, I couldn't taste the apples at all, but my husband took one bite and said, "Wow, you can really taste the applesauce." So I guess my taste buds weren't working right! However, it was still very good, and highly recommended.


For this, I used:

• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 c. white flour
• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 c. applesauce
• 3/4 c. walnut pieces

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 & butter a loaf pan.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar

Add eggs & vanilla and mix well.

In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture and stir to combine well.

Stir in applesauce & walnuts and pour into loaf pan. Bake 55-75 minutes, watching closely at the end. I always have to add extra time to the baking time suggested. I think I cooked this for 60 minutes, maybe 65, and it was perfectly done.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Slice and enjoy. I like mine slightly warm, with butter and perhaps honey.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Guess where I got this recipe? Off the wonderful collection over on this blog. My goal is to make 10 of them this year, so I'm working my way through. I already made a zucchini banana bread, but I was at my mom's and she asked me to make something from the overripe bananas she had sitting on the counter. Instead of making regular old banana bread, I went to the list and found one I hadn't made. This one calls for Greek yogurt, but I used regular vanilla, since that's what she had. I didn't adapt this one a whole lot, since it's already healthy-ish.

For this, I used:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cups white flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup organic sugar
• 3 large over-ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup vanilla (or plain) yogurt
• 1 cup zucchini, grated
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.
2. Mix brown sugar, bananas, eggs, vanilla extract, yogurt, zucchini and chocolate chips in another large bowl.
3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
4. Pour the mixture into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan.
5. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until golden brown and a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean, about 60 minutes.

Apple Walnut Zucchini Bread

This is another recipe I made from the wonderful compilation found on this blog. I didn't like this one quite as much as the banana bread, but it was still pretty good. The spices were a bit strong for me, and I couldn't taste the apple at all, which was a disappointment. I didn't want to put in extra (one seemed like a wee amount) because I wasn't sure if it would make the bread soggy.

I probably won't make this again, since I have so many recipes from that blog, including another apple bread. But if you like very spicy apple bread, this one will do the trick.

For this, I used:
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 white cup flour
1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 apple, grated
1 cup grated zucchini
2 eggs
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
dried apple slices (optional--I didn't have these, so didn't use them)

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flours, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and baking soda.
 
3. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, grated apple, zucchini, coconut oil and lemon juice.
4. Gently fold this mixture into the dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix.
5. Stir in the chopped walnuts.
 
6. Pour batter into a greased and floured loaf pan.

7. Bake for about an hour, or until browned and a toothpick comes out clean.
 
Like I said, this bread was just okay. Last time, I made banana zucchini bread and it was a little soggy. This was the opposite--a little dry. But, it got eaten, both at dinner with pork chops and sauteed squash and the next morning for breakfast. It didn't hang around on the counter for long, so I guess it was passable. 

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.

Apple Crisp

Ever since I was a kid, this has been one of my favorite desserts. Apple pie can't hold a candle to my mom's apple crisp. I've made her recipe several times, but this time, I wanted to try Fannie's. I did use oatmeal in the topping, whereas Fannie's recipe uses only flour. The technique is much different than my mom's, but it turned out really good! To me, this is more like a cobbler, with the topping having a cobbled look, whereas I think of apple crisp as having a crumb topping. But, it was still very good and I think I will be making Fannie's version again for sure.

For this version, I used:

4 c. chopped or sliced apples (peel if not using organic)
1/2 c. oatmeal
1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. white flour
1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. non-aluminum baking powder
1 egg
1 stick butter, melted

Chop the apples and put in the bottom of an 8x8 baking pan.

 

In a small bowl, mix oatmeal, flour, sugar, and baking powder

Add egg to flour mixture and mix it in until everything is moistened

Spread evenly over apples in baking pan. You may have to move the batter around some on the apples to cover them as much as possible. The batter will be very thick and a bit clumpy.

Pour butter slowly and evenly all over surface of batter. Use the back of a spoon to spread it and make sure everything is buttered.

 

Bake 25-30 minutes at 350. 

 

That last step (before cooking) sounded very strange to me, and I was sure it wouldn't be nearly as good as my mom's. But it was really good! The topping did indeed have a 'crispy' skim on top. It was buttery and just sweet enough. It baked into a cobbled type topping. If I ate this without knowing what it was, I'd call it apple cobbler. It had just enough topping, and since I'm not a fan of regular pie crust, I found this to be a wonderful alternative. Highly recommended.