Friday, December 30, 2011

Zucchini Bread. Challenge accepted.

Hey guys!

I got a tweet from @hannahjwolf at some ungodly hour (time zones, man, seriously) that I never posted this recipe.

This was originally supposed to hit the site in September, when the zucchini seems to multiply like rabbits. But then I forgot about it.

Seriously, zucchini? Ever heard of birth control?

SO, close your eyes and pretend it's still summer. You know you want to.

Also: I seem to have misplaced the photos I took while baking this. Hello, Google Images.


Zucchini Bread (adapted from The American Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)

This zucchini looks like a duck.

Let me tell you a secret, guys. When I say “adapted”, I usually mean “too lazy to go to the store to get the right ingredients”. This particular recipe was made with whatever I could find in the fridge/pantry. What I’m going to do is put the ingredients I actually used and then put what I will probably use next time in parenthesis next to it. That way you can be inspired to make EVEN BETTER zucchini bread.

Ingredients:

2 zucchini, normal sized or just 1 if it’s gigantic

1 - 1 ½ cup sugar (Less sugar is better.)

6 Tbs butter, melted and cooled

2 large eggs, slightly beaten

¼ cup vanilla cultured coconut milk “yogurt” (Next time I will use real yogurt, probably something of the greek variety. Coconut milk yogurt is pretty tasty, but it can leave a weird fake-sugary aftertaste even though there’s no fake sugar in it. Totally weird.)

If you like diet soda, you might like coconut milk yogurt.

Vanilla, as much as you want. I trust your judgement.

2 cups all purpose flour (The only reason I didn’t do half whole wheat flour was because we didn’t have any.)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

>1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp cardamom

½ tsp salt


Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375°. Grease two 8” loaf pans.

Shred the zucchini onto a pile of paper towels (I usually go with 3 paper towels) with a large-holed grater. (Giggle because I totally just said “holed”.) Squeeze out as much excess water as you can by wrapping the towels around the now shredded zucchini and, well, squeezing it over a sink or bowl. This step is pretty important if you enjoy your bread to be bread-textured rather than pudding-textured.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, butter, eggs, yogurt and vanilla.

In a totally separate large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and salt. (I should interject here that usually this kind of spice bread calls for allspice, which I totally would have added if I had any. Man, I am the worst food blogger ever.)

Fold the wet ingredients and the zucchini into the flour mix until just combined. I’m going to be honest, I totally mixed instead of folded. Shut up, it turned out fine.

Divide the batter between the two loaf pans and bake (at 375°) for 30-ish minutes. Check them at twenty. When they’re brown on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, they’re done.

Let cool in the pan until you only burn your fingers a little when you dump them out on the cooling rack. Let cool a while before you eat it.

This is what it looks like when Emeril makes zucchini bread. Aim for this.

Music:

Honestly, I was watching “Sons of Anarchy” while I was baking this. I have a big crush on Ron Perlman.

Do I love Ron Perlman? Or do I love the eight tons of prosthetics he pulls off as hellboy?

BUT RIGHT NOW I am listening to almost my entire punk library because I was feeling old this morning.

Fountain of Youth mini-playlist:

"We’re Only Gonna Die” – Bad Religion

"Beat My Guest” – Adam Ant

“No Voice of Mine” – Strung Out

“Dismantle Me” – The Distillers

“Never Heard of Corduroy” – None More Black


Enough of me. Go hassle Hannah about the KDP New York reunion posts we're all waiting for.

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