Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Something had to be done.  We've been picking zucchini on a daily basis now, and so far we've been using everything in savory dishes...grilled zucchini, for example.  But there's only so many times a week (or a day) we want to eat it after a while, so I said I'd make zucchini bread to use up some of the excess.

I know I mentioned this before somewhere in this blog, but many years ago I used up a TON of zucchini from someone's garden by making 17 different kinds (yes, seventeen) of zucchini bread, all pulled from the various cookbooks I owned at the time.  I ended up with 23 loaves.  I froze most and gave some away. 

One of the more memorable recipes was for a Chocolate Zucchini Bread.  It wasn't a sweet bread, not like, say, a carrot cake.  It was moist, and flavorful, and utilized a cup of shredded zucchini per loaf. 

I looked and looked, and found the recipe in the book Fast Breads!  by Howard Early and Glenda Morris on pgs. 66-67.  The recipe is actually for a Chocolate Potato Bread, but in a couple of paragraphs after they original recipe, they suggest substituting a cup of zucchini for the potato. 

And since we had a bunch of zucchini, I figured I should make more than just one loaf. 

So I made four. 

 

So in the photos, you'll see HUGE amounts of the ingredients, but keep in mind the list of ingredients below is only for ONE batch.  Just figured I'd mention that, just in case.

So here we go with the recipe.

Wet Ingredients:

1 C shredded zucchini

3/4 cup skim milk

1/2 cup oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

(By the way, if you want to see all of the pictures like these two, head over here.)

1 oz melted or grated unsweetened chocolate (I grated mine right into the bowl of wet ingredients)

Dry Ingredients:

2  1/2 cups unbleached flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

What to do:

Combine the wet ingredients.

Combine the dry ingredients.

Mix together the dry and wet ingredients. 

Pour into a greased medium-sized loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-60 minutes.

Let the bread cool for 10 minutes before removing it from the pan.

And enjoy!  I gave one loaf to our friends across the street, froze two, and we're in the process of eating the other one.

And the zucchini is still coming.  There will be more zucchini recipes to come....