Sweet Tooth: Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I am a sucker for anything with chocolate. So when I found this recipe for chocolate zucchini bread, I had to try it. The original recipe came from a Ghirardelli cookbook, but I modified it by substituting brown sugar for white and adding nutmeg, to get a richer flavor. This zucchini bread is a type of quick bread, which means chemical leaveners, rather than yeast, are used to make the dough rise. Quick breads are pretty simple to make, and keep well. This bread has quickly become one of my favorites. I recently made it for Miguel’s dad, and he liked it so much, he got up at 2 AM to have a piece (I’m pretty sure that means he really liked it)! Leftovers? Try making chocolate zucchini bread French toast. Delicious!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

• 1-Cup Brown Sugar
• ¼ Cup Sugar
• 1-Cup Oil
• ½ Cup Water
• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 3 Cups Flour
• 1 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
• ¾ tsp. Ground Nutmeg
• ½ tsp. Baking Soda
• ¼ tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 large Shredded Zucchini
• 2 8 oz. Bars Milk Chocolate for Baking, chopped into ¼” pieces*

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9”x 5” loaf pan, or line it with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine sugars, oil, water, eggs, and vanilla. Mix until blended.

In another bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and baking powder.

Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients gradually, stirring until well mixed.

Stir in chocolate and zucchini.

Spoon mixture into loaf pan. Place in oven and bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean, about an hour and a half.

Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely.

Store at room temperature, wrapped in aluminum foil.

* Can be substituted for mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, if desired.

Enjoy!