Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Chocolate and zucchini? Together?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Just trust me on this one.

My dad is a talented gardener, and every summer our garden was overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetable to be eaten up and canned. Zucchini, in particular, seemed to do very well in the Seattle soil, and each year we would be inundated by huge, dark green, monsters of zucchini. For mom, it was a challenge to figure out what to do with it all. Then she discovered this recipe (and dad discovered the Continental Vegetable recipe), and voila! Problem solved.

This is a lovely, moist, but not-too-sweet loaf cake that is perfect for a tea-time snack. It's a big recipe, and makes three loaves - if you want just one loaf, divide the amounts by three (which is what I usually do). It's a fairly forgiving recipe, so if you don't get the coversions exactly right for the baking powder and soda, it won't make much difference.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

3 Eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. Vanilla

2 cups brown sugar, packed

3 squares unsweetened chocolate

3 cups grated zucchini (about 3 store-bought zucchini, or one zucchini from Dad’s garden)

4 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. cloves

Heat oven to 350 degree F. In a microwave or double boiler, melt the chocolate.

In a large bowl mix together the eggs, oil, vanilla and brown sugar.  Stir in the melted chocolate and then the zucchini.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl, and then add them to the zucchini mixture. Stir well.

Bake in 2 or 3 greased and floured loaf pans for 40 - 60 minutes, depending on loaf size.  To test whether the loaves are done, get a piece of spaghetti and stick it into the tallest part of each loaf (my mom's clever technique). If it comes out with wet batter still attached, cook for another 5 minutes then test again.

The cooked loaves freeze well. (This is very useful as gardens generally produce a huge amount of zucchini all at once.)

From: the Zucchini Cookbook, discovered by Mom