100 Days of Pinterest: Day 90 - Chocolate Zucchini Bread

 

One of my favorite summer activities is gardening. I absolutely love it. I've been a gardener since I was a little kid. I used to help my grandma and grandpa take care of theirs each summer and I remember watching my grandma make meals with veggies from things she harvested from her backyard. When I was in the fifth grade my mom began a garden. She pulled my younger brother and I out of school two days each spring to get the garden ready. I have also always had a flower garden of my own as well. I think I was born with a green thumb. It's in my blood.

This summer my best friend, Bethany, and I started an organic garden together. I live in town and do not have a large yard by any means. Definitely not large enough for the stuff I wanted to plant. I do have tomatoes, peppers, and broccoli planted in containers, but that's all I could make room for. Bethany's brother lives on a farm and agreed to let us use some of his land for our garden. It's been no small task, but it has also been fun spending even more time with Bethany.

We have already began harvesting veggies from the garden. Bethany went out this past weekend and picked some zucchini that were ready.  They were perfect! Since I have never made zucchini bread (Bethany makes some good zucchini bread), I decided to search Pinterest for a recipe that sounded good. That's where I came across one for Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread pinned from Life Could Be a Dream blog. They had me at double chocolate! When I told my husband I was making some zucchini bread I could see he wasn't excited at all. He doesn't really care for it. I love it and so do our boys . . . we win. I made it anyways.

I started off by grating the zucchini with my handy dandy cheese grater (yeah, my kids used to watch Blue's Clues). This was a messy task, but it went quickly. It only took about five minutes. Then I placed the grated zucchini onto several layered paper towels for about twenty minutes to allow for the moisture to be released.

Once finished with this step, it was on to the batter. As you'll see in the recipe below there are quite a few ingredients. So, get everything out beforehand and don't do like I did and assume you have it all available. I thought I had enough sour cream and I didn't. My husband was in the middle of building some shelves when I asked him to make a trip to the store for me. I had hurt my back a few days earlier and didn't feel like hobbling around a store for sixteen ounces of sour cream. He went and got the sour cream, but of course he had to remind me that I was an old lady with my back issues. After fifteen years together, we're both old in our own ways. He's so awesome for an old man though (back at ya, old fart).

Since I am in love with my little red Corvette, I thought I'd include a picture of her here. Yes, I'm talking about my KitchenAid Stand Mixer. She's pretty, but incredibly useful. If you don't have one, you simply must get one for your kitchen. You can find them on Craigslist, Ebay, and even Amazon. Mine is an Artisan Series in Gloss Cinnamon.

Anywho, back to the zucchini bread. Once you get the batter finished you simply add the shredded zucchini, mix it, add the chocolate chips and you're ready to bake it. This makes two loaves or you can make muffins if you prefer. If you want just one loaf, this is an easy recipe to cut in half.

This is a super simple bread and it's worth the minimal effort to make. Once the bread was finished I couldn't keep my guys away. My oldest smelled it cooling and came in begging for a piece. Half a loaf was gone before the bread even cooled. That's when you know it's good.

My husband, the "I don't like zucchini bread" guy, has now changed his outlook. Today, he took three slices to work with him so that his work friends could try it. Looks like a win for me. Nobody in the man cave can deny chocolatey bread!

Enough small talk. Here's the recipe:

Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread  

(originally posted on lifecouldbeadreamblog.com)
 

makes 2 loaves

4 large eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup sour cream

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup cocoa powder

3 1/3 cups all purpose flour

4 cups shredded, unpeeled zucchini (gently press the juice out)

2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (save 1/2 cup for sprinkling on top of batter)

Preheat the oven to 350*. Lightly grease 2 loaf pans.

Beat the eggs, sugars, sour cream, and vanilla until very smooth. Add the salt, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, and flour, mixing until well combined. Stir in zucchini and 2 cups of the chocolate chips. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of chocolate chips onto the batter.

Bake for 65-75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Remove bread from oven and cool for 10-15 minutes before releasing from the pan. Cool completely before slicing.

I'd love to hear if you have any other zucchini bread recipes to try. I saw one for lemon that I think I'll be working on next. I'm sure it won't compare to this Double Chocolate Zucchini bread though!!

Thanks for reading!

Take care,
NB