I know. I know. I know. We ingested a zucchin-based food last time (and the time before that), but, well, zucchini grows really well in Mississippi, especially this time of year, especially for farmers who participate in CSA’s! …Sorry. Zucchini gets me a little emotional sometimes. Let’s just move past this.*
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup and 11 tablespoons maple syrup**
- 9 tablespoons virgin coconut oil***
- 1 mashed overripe banana****
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups grated zucchini
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- NOTE: 1/16 cup = 1 tablespoon
*DISCLAIMER: Results may very based upon how good of a baker you are and how well I converted and substituted everything. Consequently, it may not look like the picture…or taste good.
Materials:
- Two 8 x 4 inch pans
- Large bowl
- Something to mix stuff
Procedure:
- Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
- Beat eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar together in a large bowl.
- Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well.
- Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined.
- Pour batter into prepared pans.
- Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.
- Eat (cautiously)
**OK, Fine! I admit it: the original recipe required 2 and 1/4 cups of sugar and I don’t think FoodCorps, I mean, we at FoodCorps, do not advocate the consumption of such copious amounts of sugar, so I changed the recipe a bit. (If you’re daring, you can check out the original recipe.) There are plenty of sugar substitutes to choose, from honey to erythritol (I don’t know what it is either). I decided to use maple syrup because it’s 40% less sweet than sugar; it’s loaded with zinc and manganese; and it’s made in a tree, not a test tube. The conversion is as follows: 2 and 1/4 cups of sugar = 1 and 11/16 cups of syrup. You could use a tablespoon or just eyeball it because what’s a tablespoon of syrup between friends?
***Syrup’s aqueous character has to be adjusted for by changing the amount of the main liquid in the recipe: vegetable oil. To do this, you must reduce the amount of oil by 3 tablespoons 13/16. While I was at it, I decided to replace the vegetable oil with healthier option: virgin coconut oil.
****I then got a little carried away and reduced the quantity of oil again with the employment of one overripe banana, bringing your amount down to 9 tablespoons, nearly half of the original recipe’s amount. The banana also serves as a binding agent, because the syrup cannot bind as well as sugar.
Sources:
http://dish.allrecipes.com/baking-with-sugar-and-sugar-substitutes/
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/moms-zucchini-bread/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130717-sugar-substitutes-nutrasweet-splenda-stevia-baking/
