Last Thursday the Young Women's president gave me a zucchini after our meeting. (After a 4 month break from YW I'm back in, as 1st counselor this time.) My sister had posted a zucchini bread recipe on her Facebook, but Brien mentioned that chocolate zucchini cake would be better. This morning I decided to whip it up for him before it became too hot to use the oven (reminder, we don't have a/c). My local experton this recipe couldn't be reached by phone, so I had to find a recipe on the web that sounded good. I finally settled on this high-calorie deliciousness but I made lots of "healthy" changes based on a variety of suggestions in the "reviews."
I started grating my 2 cups of zucchini. At first I used my little food processer, but decided to change over to a fine hand grater. To multi-task the chocolate was put in the microwave. Z was interested in what I was doing, but then became sidetracked and happily investigated the Costco-sized bag of baking soda on our laundry shelf. I looked over a short while later to see a pile of white powder on the floor, the laundry rug, and also on her. As I grabbed her to rinse her arms in the sink I noticed small blue dots in this white powder. Do you know what that means? She had poured Oxyclean all over, not baking soda. It coated her shirt. I tried to get her clothes off without getting more of it in her face and eyes. It turned into bath time. She yelled at me for rinsing her with the shower head before I filled the tub and let her play. While she enjoyed the water and bubbles I cleaned up the mess, washed my hands and arms thoroughly, and finished grating my zucchini. (I should note that our house is tiny, I was able to hear her playing in the tub.)
I was done with Zarina's bath time. I rinsed her off to screams of, "NO, NO!" and then caught her slippery self in a towel. Since she has a diaper rash I decided to let her air out, in her towel, on the imitation-leather couch while watching TV. I washed my hands and returned to the zucchini bread.
I did my mixing, substituting, and reducing for about 10 minutes. The forgotten chocolate needed more microwave time. I double checked the recipe and realized I skipped the vanilla extract. I checked the recipe again; nothing else was missing. After adding my flour and ground flax seed I went to grab the baking soda and realized that I had forgotten to monitor the naked toddler and she had by now likely peed on her towel on the couch. There wasn't a puddle, but the towel was damp enough to create suspicion. I carefully carried naked baby to her changing table for diaper, butt cream, and clothes.
Again I thoroughly washed my hands. Checked the recipe, where was I supposed to be? Figured out what was still needed. Added remaining ingredients. Was it supposed to be this runny? Zarina pulls on my leg and "asks questions." Decided to add some sour cream to give it a little je ne sais quoi. Added a little flour to make up for the extra moisture. Happily dumped the mixture into two loaf pans, wondering, "Did this need to take an hour? How much electricity did I waste with my preheated oven?" As I opened the oven I realized that I did want to add a few chocolate chips afterall, who cares about the calories. Sprinkled luscious loaves with chips and lightly mixed them under the surface.
The bread stuck a bit to the bottom of the pan, but it tastes great. This was the most experimenting I've done with a recipe. You can use the original recipe, but here's what I made:
Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Ingredients:
2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate (or 6 Tbls cocoa powder and 2 Tbls oil mixed together)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar (can reduce sugar by 25% and replace amount with powdered milk)
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 cups finely grated zucchini
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup sour cream
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour
scant 1/2 cup ground flax seed
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1) Preheat oven to 350. Thoroughly grease 2 loaf pans (especially the bottom).
2) Melt chocolate in microwave in 3o second increments, or mix cocoa powder with oil.
3) In large bowl, mix eggs, sugar, oil, applesauce, zucchini, vanilla, sour cream and chocolate. Add flour, ground flax, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
4) Divide batter equally between the two pans. Sprinkle chocoate chips on top.
5) Bake in oven 50-60 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.
Recipe works fine at elevation of 6450 feet.
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