The vigor of zucchini plants has spawned jokes about giant squash left on porches or in mailboxes – jokes that often ring true by summer’s end. I designed this sweet bread recipe to quickly and easily use lots of zucchini.
Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients. This recipe is meant to be adaptive. If you bake a lot and have all of the ingredients, you’ll end up with my preferred texture and flavor for zucchini bread. But you can alter it as needed as long as you stick with 4 cups of flours and other grains, 1 cup of sugars and four eggs.
The separate spices can be replaced with about 5 teaspoons of pumpkin spice mix; find my recipe made with whole toasted spices and then ground on TwiceAsTasty.com. I use homemade applesauce in many baked goods to minimize the fat, but loaves still rise best with a little butter.
As for the zucchini, replace some or all of the 3 cups with yellow summer squash – freshly grated or shredded, frozen and thawed. In spring, I follow this recipe but swap in 3 cups of diced rhubarb. If you lack loaf pans, divide the batter among 12 muffin cups and bake for just 30 minutes.
Zucchini Bread with Sesame Seeds
Makes 2 loaves
3 medium zucchini, grated (about 3 cups)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup oat bran
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1-1/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
4 tablespoons sesame seeds, divided
Set a colander over a bowl and allow the zucchini to drain, especially if thawing grated and frozen zucchini.
In a large bowl, mix the all-purpose and whole-wheat flours, oat bran, baking soda and powder and salt. Stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and ginger; set aside.
In a separate bowl, beat the white and brown sugars into the applesauce. Add the butter, beat in each egg and then fold in the zucchini.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones; scrape flour from the bowl’s bottom as you stir until just combined. Gently fold in the lemon zest and nuts, if using, along with 3 tablespoons of sesame seeds.
Split the batter between two lightly greased 9-by-5 inch loaf pans; sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of sesame seeds. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes, rotate the pans and then bake another 30 minutes, until the tops are golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool slightly, remove from the pans and finish cooling on a wire rack.
Julie Laing is a Bigfork-based cookbook author and food blogger at TwiceAsTasty.com.