I love quick breads. they are easy to throw together and down-home good to eat. The classics will always be a staple in my recipe book: zucchini bread and banana bread (especially fancied up versions like my Milk Chocolate Caramel Banana Bread).
They remind me of summer, especially zucchini bread. Growing up, my father always had a garden in our small suburban backyard. Tomatoes, green bell peppers, cucumbers and zucchini were always present. But those zucchini! The legends say that neighbors would leave piles of zucchini in peoples front seats in the summer if they left their car windows open. The huge harvest (yeah, even in our suburban backyard we could call it a harvest) lead to forceful sharing of baseball bat sized produce and the need to find delicious recipes.
Zucchini bread it is. I could eat zucchini in just about any fashion, from zoodles (yep. I have one of those fun spiralizers), to pan fried with olive oil, cooked with red sauce and mozzarella to well, baking it into yummy desserts.
Granted, this was usually a breakfast item for me and it didn’t include the lemon glaze that I’ve added to it. But I did throw in some plump, sweet blueberries, so… Balance. Glaze/fruit. Evens out.
I like to make big single loaves that rise tall like a real loaf of bread rather than short loaves. I have no real reason. But you could easily reduce the baking time of my recipe to bake two shorter loaves or to use mini loaf pans (which are super fun!).
| Prep Time | 15 minutes |
| Cook Time | 60 minutes |
| Servings |
loaf
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- 1 cup Vegetable oil
- 2 cups granulated white sugar
- 1 tsp bourbon vanilla bean paste or extract
- 2 cups grated zucchini
- 3 cups AP flour
- 1.5 tsp Baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- .5 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup fresh blueberries rinsed and patted dry
- 1 each lemon zested and juiced zest and juice kept separate
- 1 cup confectioners'/powdered sugar
Ingredients
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- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour the inside of a 9" x 5" loaf pan, unless it is dark-coated. Then you don't need to do anything to prepare it.
- Sift all dry ingredients together and set aside.
- Add the vegetable oil, sugar, and vanilla bean paste to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix to incorporate.
- Add grated Zucchini and mix.
- Remove mixing bowl from the stand mixer and gently stir all dry ingredients by hand until just incorporated.
- Add blueberries and lemon zest and fold in lightly. Don't overmix.
- Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes, until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Allow to rest in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove to wire rack.
- Make a glaze with the juice of the lemon and the confectioners' sugar adding the lemon juice to the sugar only enough to make a thick consistency glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the loaf after it has been removed from the pan.
Smaller zucchini will have fewer seeds to deal with. I prefer them for baking.
I like to drizzle some of the glaze onto the loaf while it's still warm so it soaks in a bit. I add the rest of the glaze once it's fully cooled.
This loaf is delicious served warm with extra glaze. It can also be wrapped in foil and then in plastic and frozen for up to 2 months.
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