Zucchini Bread with CHOCOLATE CHIPS

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Mmmm..  Doesn't that sound delicious? This time of year our garden is usually chock full of zucchini. This can only mean one thing for us - Zucchini Bread.

I found this recipe a few years back and love it. When it comes to baking, I tend to follow recipes rather than venturing out on my own and mixing stuff together. So, consider this me doing the hard work of sifting (like what I did there) through the recipes and giving my readers the best of the best.

The original recipe can be found here.


Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1tsp. salt
1tsp. baking soda
1tsp. baking powder
3tsp. ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 c. vegetable oil
2 ¼ c. white sugar
3 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. grated zucchini

* The original recipe called for 1 cup of chopped walnuts. I added a sprinkle of chocolate chips.*

I pretty much add chocolate chips to everything that I bake - they complete everything so well.

Directions:

Grease and flour two loaf pans and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  I use the baking spray that has the flour already in it. It's called Baker's Joy. If you haven't tried using it, it's awesome. Even the store brand versions work well.


Then you want to sift the flour, salt, baking power, baking soda and cinnamon together in a bowl.

Why sifted?  It's to aerate the flour, and to make sure that there isn't any debris in it. This is mainly for people that take flour right from the bag to the bowl. We keep ours in a container.  If you use a whisk you can have the same effect.  I have a sifter, so I use it.  I've never skipped this step, but I'm sure that you could, and the bread would turn out just fine.


Next, you beat the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a bowl. Add the sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture and beat well.

The mixture will be really thick, as you can see on the spoon below. It SHOULD be like this, the zucchini will give the mixture the liquid that it needs to be poured into the loaf pans.

I put some of the mixture on the spoon and ran my finger down the middle. The mixture didn't come back together, so that means it is really thick. You can also use this method for judging whether or not sauces are ready.

Next step, grating the zucchini. This is always messy. My preferred method is to use a box grater.  As the name implies, it has 4 sides. One is good for slicing, one good for grating, and to be honest, I'm not sure what the others are good for other than making mush. So, if you want mush, use the other sides.

I used the side closest to the left - just in case you didn't notice the leftover zucchini on it.

When you are finished grating, add the zucchini to the mixture and use a wooden spoon to mix it back in. A metal spoon works, but it is much easier to stir with a wooden spoon.

Yes, I realize that in this picture, I've got a PC spatula. This is one of those "do as I say, not as I do" moments, kids.

After the zucchini is mixed in. Pour the mixture into the loaf pans. This is also when I add the chocolate chips.

Why not mix them into the batter? You could.. but, I've found that they sink to the bottom and make the bread stick to the pan. Usually sprinkling the chips with flour before mixing them in prevents this, but for some reason that trick doesn't work with this recipe.

The original recipe also calls for the baking time to be between 40 and 60 minutes. That is a huge range. I've never had this bread be ready in less than 60 minutes. In fact, it tends to be longer than that sometimes too (65 minutes has been tops).

Here's the finished product. The chocolate chips sunk down into the mixture as it baked, but not enough to go all of the way to the bottom.

If you try this, let me know! I'd love to hear if you enjoyed it. Our family loves it, my parents actually fight over it!