This is my go to zuke bread recipe. It never fails. I copied it out of a cookbook in 1988 after planting 9 zuke plants in my first garden. I modified it slightly to my taste, but the basic recipe never lets me down. It works well baked in small coffee cans too. Citrusy Zucchini Bread 3 eggs 3/4 cup vegetable oil 1 1/2 cups sugar 1/2 tsp lemon or orange extract 1 tsp lemon or orange zest 1/2 tsp vanilla 2 cups grated or shredded zucchini, drained a bit if very wet 2 1/2 cups un-sifted flour 1/2 cup wheat germ (optional, but better with it) 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp ginger 1 tsp baking soda 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (or nuts of your choice, or none at all) Beat together eggs, oil and sugar; beat in extracts, zest and zucchini. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl; stir into wet ingredients and add nuts. Turn into two small, buttered loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Cool in pans until loaves can be removed easily, then finish cooling on wire rack. These loaves freeze well.

Lars, when I have zucchini that "hides" and I don't find it until it's too big to make a nice vegetable dish, then I make zucchini candy, zucchini pickles or relish or zucchini bread or muffins. I only have zucchini that big, though, for about a month or two in the summer, the rest of the time it's just too expensive to buy enough zucchini to make bread! This recipe takes 4 cups grated, and makes two loaves. Seagrass, I knew I'd like the addition of mocha, as well as the almond extract in this recipe, but I didn't read the recipe carefully, melted the butter and just stirred everything together in the bowl. It worked for me, sometimes I just get lucky! You can use a mixer, with that shoulder. I do hope you are feeling better... Mocha Zucchini Bread 4 cups grated zucchini (from about a pound and a half of zucchini) 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (use natural unsweetened cocoa, NOT Dutch processed) 2 teaspoons baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar 2 eggs 3/4 cup unsalted butter (12 Tbsp or 1 1/2 sticks), melted 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules 1/2 teaspoon almond extract 1 Drain excess moisture from grated zucchini: Place the freshly grated zucchini in a sieve over a bowl to catch any excess moisture as it drains, while you work on prepping the other ingredients and preparing the recipe. 2 Preheat oven, prepare loaf pans: Preheat oven to 350°F, with a rack in the middle. Grease two 9x5-inch loaf pans with baking spray or butter. 3 Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, cinnamon: Vigorously whisk together the flour, unsweetened cocoa, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Whisk until there are no more clumps and the ingredients are well combined. 4 Beat sugar and eggs, add melted butter, instant coffee granules, almond extract: In a separate large bowl, beat together the sugar and eggs until smooth, about a minute. You can do this with an electric mixer on medium speed, or by hand with a wooden spoon. (I'm lazy and use a mixer but it's easy enough to do by hand.)Add the melted butter, instant coffee granules, and almond extract and beat until smooth. 5 Stir zucchini into sugar egg mixture, add flour mixture: Mix the shredded zucchini into the sugar egg mixture. Add the flour to the zucchini mixture in 3 additions, stirring to combine after each addition. 6 Divide batter into pans and bake: Work quickly, and divide the batter between the two prepared loaf pans. (Work quickly because once the dry ingredients have mixed with the wet ingredients, the leavening has begun.) Place into the oven. Bake for 50 minutes at 350°F, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean and easily. 7 Cool: Remove to a rack. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then run a blunt knife around the edges to separate the bread from the pan. Remove from the loaf pans and let cool completely on a rack. Note that if you try to slice the chocolate zucchini bread before it has completely cooled, it will be rather crumbly. It's also easiest to slice with a bread knife. Martha, my next loaf is orange chocolate chip zucchini bread! Annie

here's a very good recipe for zucchini bread. I made 6 large muffins and 1 small loaf pan with this recipe. Ingredients 3 cups grated fresh zucchini about 4 zucchini 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I used china cassia) 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 3/4 cup butter (melted 30 seconds in microwave) 1 cup chopped pecans optional (I use sunflower seeds) Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease two 8x4-inch loaf pans. nonstick spray works well. Set aside. Place the grated zucchini in colander in the sink while you continue. Mix sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, and butter in a large bowl. Add flour, baking soda, and cinnamon, and whisk in until just combined. Stir in grated zucchini until just incorporated. Add nuts, if using, and stir in until just combined. Divide batter between prepared loaf pans. Bake for 40-60 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.*** (25 min in my convection oven) Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Run a butter knife around the edges; remove zucchini bread onto wire racks. Dave

That blog from Kind Arthur Flour was really fascinating reading. Pretty technical but I like to know why something does or does not work. For example, I did not know that reducing the sugar in a recipe makes it less moist. I saved some of the links to hopefully save me from failures when altering a recipe. Cloudy Christine, I did not know that cakes with oil have more sugar! My favorite banana bread recipe from Cook's Illustrated uses melted butter. That also makes 2 loaves like this one; I should compare the sugar content in that one (sure enough, only ¾ c of sugar! But with 3 bananas, I don’t know how much sugar comes from those ). That tastes sweet but not as sweet as this zucchini bread recipe. For my purposes quickbreads are add-ons to breakfast. “Elevenses” to hold me til lunch (I am self employed and if busy often won’t break for lunch until 2 pm). Or something to have with afternoon tea. Lascatz, that Brazilian recipe looks interesting. Looks rather like a pound cake. Sleevendog, I would love that non-sweet recipe if you get the chance! I decided to start a new thread about the carrot quick bread. Banana bread ingredients from Cook's Illustrated 2 C unbleached all purpose flour ¾ C sugar ¾ tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt 1 C chopped walnuts (toasted if you have time) 3 very ripe bananas, mashed well ¼ C plain yogurt (buttermilk or sour milk works also, as above) 2 large eggs, slightly beaten 6 Tbsp butter, melted and cooled 1 tsp vanilla