Zucchini bread (w chocolate chips!)

We have more greens and vegetables than we know what to do with this summer, largely due to a CSA my wife signed up for. That's not a complaint, it's just a fact right now and I think I've been doing a pretty good job finding ways to use most of the stuff. My favorite so far was some zucchini bread and I thought the idea worth saving and sharing.

My wife's a big fan of Sally's Baking Addiction, a baking blogger, and that's where I've been starting when looking for recipes. We already had everything needed so that worked out great. Here's the recipe if you want the original.

What you'll need:

dry ingredients

- 1+3/4 cup all purpose flour, spooned/leveled

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1+1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1/4 tsp ground nutmug

wet ingredients

- 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

- 1/2 cup granulated sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1/4 cup applesauce

- 2 tsp vanilla extract

- 1+1/2 cup zucchini, shredded (~half of one medium sized zucchini)

add-in

- 1 cup chocolate chips

Quick version:

1. Oven to 350, grease 9"x5" loaf pan (even if it has rubber insert)

2. Prepare ingredients, i.e. melt the coconut oil, shred the zucchini

3. Whisk 'dry ingredients' above in large bowl

4. Whisk 'wet ingredients' above in medium bowl, leave zucchini for last

5. Pour wet into dry, combine but do not over-mix, stop ASAP

6. Add any mix-ins, gently

7. Spread into loaf pan and bake 50-55 minutes, look for clean toothpick

8. Let cool entirely before slicing

Notes:

The first mistake I made was not greasing the pan. The loaf pan we have has a rubber insert that I (incorrectly) assumed would allow for easy removal. This hurt me at the end but not that much, it just affected the bread's aesthetics. Besides, the chunks that stuck inside there were delicious.

I went with coconut oil, melted in the microwave, instead of vegetable oil. This is something my wife very much prefers and I honestly couldn't taste any coconut in the end, which to me is a good thing.

Zucchini is really easy to shred it turns out. I'm not sure what I expected there, as this was my first time trying it, but that step wasn't a problem at all. No need to peel or anything.

I was very happy in the end that I added chocolate chips to the recipe. It made the end result that much better. Most of them sunk to the bottom half of the loaf but it's not like it matters.

Everything in our oven seems to get done well before recipe baking time windows and this was no exception. I tested the doneness at 50 minutes (55-70 minutes suggested in the original recipe) and the toothpick came out clean, except for some chocolate. So I pulled it out then.

My bread wasn't nearly as attractive as the pictures in Sally's post. For starters, as I said before, I didn't get a clean removal. I also didn't get as much rise and was a little dense. It was still absolutely delicious. I do wonder what I could do better, maybe be even more gentle with the mixing and pouring or a few more minutes in the oven. Regardless I will make this one again. Yum.