Vegan Zucchini [No Chocolate Chip] Bread

I am not a baker. I much prefer to cook and experiment with different flavours, adding ingredients and spices as I go to take a meal from good to holycrapgreat.

Every once in awhile, however, usually prodded by someone else, I whip out the baking supplies and get down and dirty with the chemistry of baking. This time, Tiffany was the prod. We met in her kitchen yesterday afternoon to put to use the enormous zucchini she had bought at a market over Thanksgiving. Our goal: vegan zucchini bread. Preferably with chocolate chips.

There were a few recipes I had seen online, and we ended up using this zucchini bread recipe with some minor changes.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp ground flax, whisked into 9 tbsp warm water
• 2½ cups zucchini, grated
• ½ cup oil
• ½ cup applesauce
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp allspice
• ~ 1 cup chocolate chips

Begin by whisking together ground flax and water in a small bowl, and let sit for a few minutes. Add zucchini, oil, applesauce, sugar, and vanilla to a mixing bowl, as well as the flax “eggs”. Mix thoroughly. Tasting is optional.

In a separate bowl, add flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. I don’t think we really measured the spices, we just threw them in. Tiffany didn’t have the nutmeg the recipe called for, so we figured we would add a bit extra cinnamon to even it out. That or we just like cinnamon.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until everything is moist. You don’t want to go crazy with the mixing here or the bread will be too tough. Everyone likes soft bread.

Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans [or muffin pans] and bake at 350℉ for 45-50 minutes. We found at the twenty-minutes-to-go mark that the loaves were browning quickly, and so I turned the temperature down to about 300℉ for the last twenty minutes. Just use your judgement and know your oven!

We had planned on putting chocolate chips in the batter at the end, but forgot all about them until the batter was already in the loaf pans. Tiffany didn’t have many chocolate chips on hand anyway [only about ½ cup], so we decided to just sprinkle a few on top of each loaf. It was a great little addition without making the bread too sweet throughout!

I had a slice for breakfast this morning with some vegan butter on it and it was divine. I’m going to have to freeze the other half of my loaf so I don’t eat it all today!