It’s zucchini time in our garden. Personally, zucchini and I have a love/hate relationship – mostly hate if the truth be told. However, I will take a piece of moist, sweet, fragrant zucchini bread any day of the week.
The original recipe that I inherited from my grandmother has been modified and tweeked so many times that even she wouldn’t recognize it. Here is our current version of rich and sweet zucchini bread.
Rich and Sweet Zucchini Bread
Makes one full loaf 9 x 5″ and a half pan of muffins (6).
Weight Watchers point value = 6 per slice. There are 12 slices per loaf.
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
Whisk together in a large bowl until thoroughly blended:
3 C. spelt flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 Tbl sp cacao powder (or cocoa powder if you prefer)
1 tsp cinnamon
For a heartier version, you can substitute the following flour combination for the 3 cups of spelt flour:
1 C. wheatberries
7/8 C. white rice flour
1 1/8 C. oat flour
Combine the following ingredients and then beat together with a mixer:
6 egg whites, beaten – need to be of a light and foamy consistency
NOTE: Beat eggs first before adding to rest of ingredients.
1/2 C. of coconut oil (heat just enough so that the solid coconut oil melts to liquid form – don’t overheat)
NOTE: If you overheat oil and then add the hot oil to egg mixture, you will end up with cooked egg whites.
1 1/2 C. maple sugar (can substitute brown sugar)
2 C. unpeeled, grated fresh zucchini
1 Tbl sp. vanilla
1 C. walnuts (can substitute 1/2 C. chocolate chips plus 1/2 C. pecans)
Mix dry ingredients into the wet using wooden spoon. Do not overblend. Pour the batter into buttered loaf pan. Spoon the left-over batter into muffin cups. Bake loaf for 50min – 1 hr depending on oven. Test with toothpick or cake tester in the center of bread. If the tester comes out clean, your bread is done. Muffins generally take about 7-10 minutes in my oven. Cool on rack. To remove bread from pan, slide butter knife around the edges of loaf pan and invert onto plate.