I have a bit of a sweet tooth and love baked goodies which of course are usually high in fat, sugar and cholesterol. So I'm always trying to bake healthy snacks and yesterday I came up with a real winner. I still have lots of shredded zucchini in the freezer from last year's crop and decided to bake zucchini bread which I have been baking for years from the Betty Crocker's New Cookbook.
I froze my zucchini in 3 cup measurements as per the recipe but when it defrosted and squeezed all the moisture out of it I was left with one cup, so I added two large bananas.
Here is the recipe as it appears in the cookbook with my substitutions/additions in parentheses.
3 cups shredded zucchini ( 1 cup zucchini and two ripe mashed bananas)
1 2/3 cup sugar (1/3 cup sugar)
2/3 cup oil (1/3 cup canola oil)
2 tsp vanilla
4 large eggs (one large egg + the equivalent of 3 eggs from an egg substitute product)
3 cups all purpose flour ( 1 1/2 cup each of white and whole grain flour)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I didn't have any on hand but added 1/2 c chocolate chips)
1/2 cup raisins
Preheat over to 350 degrees and butter and flour pans. This makes two 8 inch loaf pans which are baked for 50 to 60 minutes at 350 degrees or one glass lasagna pan approx 8 x 13 in for about 35 minutes.
Mix zucchini, bananas, oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl, stir in the rest of the ingredients and pour into pans.
It's moist, sweet but from the raisins and bananas rather than from the sugar and the chocolate chips are really delicious with the banana. I cut the cake into three equal sections and freeze it.
I didn't have any apple sauce on hand nor did I feel like making any but next time I'll substitute all the oil with applesauce.
4 comments:
That's pretty close to my recipe. I love muffins or bread made with zucchini. I often replace the zucchini with applesauce (homemade).
Great job on the weight loss.
I just picked up my zucchini sets at Mother Nature (I know, I should have started my own, but time just got away from me). I'll keep the recipe for summer when they start producing, and producing, and producing (you know what I mean). - Margy
I froze zucchini too and it does get pretty soupy when thawed. I chop it in the food processor, then put it in ziplock baggies, then freeze. A half tsp of ground cloves? I use just a tiny bit and wonder what a half tsp would taste like. Guess we'll have to try it. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Yummy,can't wait to try this.Here in N.H. we shred,salt and drain our zucchini for about 1-2 hourslet it sit on paper towels for a bit,then freeze.It's sort of like frozen spinach.Never perfect but,still useable.
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