Oddly, today is
National Zucchini Bread Day.
That doesn't really make any sense since it's only
April 25 and my zucchini hasn't even started to bloom. Maybe this holiday refers to
zucchini growing Down Under? Of course you can buy
zucchini in the market all
year round, but it's a summer crop in the Northern Hemisphere. By mid-summer if you're growing
zucchini here (even one plant!), you've probably run out of friends to hand
zukes off to, and you're thinking of wrapping your zucchini up in a blanket,
putting them in a basket and leaving them on the church steps
, so you might want to save this recipe for the summer.
Unfortunately
Zucchini Bread doesn't use up a lot of
zucchini, but it's a tasty way of serving up your
courgettes!
Add
chocolate and you're calling my name!
When I first
started baking 'vegetable' breads, I used old coffee tins for baking
pans, but that was a long time ago, and my beans now come in recyclable paper bags. I usually make my zucchini
breads in Bundt pans. Of course conventional loaf pans work,
too, since this is a quick bread.
Most recipes say to let the
zucchini bread
cool before serving. I don't follow that advice since by the time the
aroma has filled my kitchen for an hour, I'm ready to devour this
Chocolate Zucchini Bread and often do! Since you, too, may make short shrift of this
Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread with Pistachios, you'll want to make two, so double the recipe, if you plan to share.
A
few comments on
zucchini. Depending on where you live,
zucchini may be called
courgettes or
marrows (
remember Hercule Poirot throwing the
marrow over the fence in the opening of Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
and sometimes
summer squash (although in my neck of the woods
summer
squash is a totally different squash and a different color).
For your recipe pleasure, here's a link to recipes for different, but equally tasty
Chocolate Zucchini Bread:
Geeky Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread and Chocolate Chunk Zucchini Bread. As you know, you can never have too many recipes for
Chocolate Zucchini Bread!
This
Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread tastes great toasted with a little cream cheese or mascarpone! And, the secret ingredient --
Pistachios!
DOUBLE CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI BREAD with Pistachios!
Ingredients
3 large eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp pure Vanilla
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
6 Tbsp DARK Cocoa
2 cups zucchini, grated
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
dash of salt
1-1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2/3 cup chopped chocolate or dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup coarsely chopped pistachios
2 tsp flour
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.
In large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Mix until well blended.
In small saucepan, melt 2 Tbsp butter, add 6 Tbsp cocoa and blend until smooth. Set aside to cool.
Peel and grate zucchini. Add zucchini and cooled cocoa mixture to the large mixing bowl and blend well.
In
separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add
dry ingredients to batter. Stir only enough to blend in all dry
ingredients.
In another bowl, coat broken up chocolate chunks (or chips) with 2 tsp flour.
Fold in flour-coated chocolate chunks and chopped pistachios to batter.
Spoon batter into two greased and floured 9x5x3 loaf pans or into greased bundt pan.
Bake 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.
Cool in pans for 5-10 minutes.
Remove from pans and continue to cool on wire rack.