Zucchini Bread

Well, since my love of zucchini is well-established, I’ll just get right to it.  This is delicious zucchini bread, and even more delicious if you add a crumble topping of approx. 1 tbsp melted butter, 1/2 cup oats and 1/3 cup brown sugar…adjust to your taste, but don’t make TOO much since it will just fall off when you de-pan the loaves anyway.

(This recipe makes 2 loaves)

1 1/2 cups white flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg (optional…nutmeg gives me the heebie jeebies.)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil OR melted butter

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups shredded, unpeeled zucchini (or carrots, or a combination of the two)

1/2 cup walnuts and/or raisins (optional…raisins also give me the heebie jeebies.)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine first 7 ingredients.  Beat eggs in large mixing bowl and gradually beat in sugar, then oil and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients, mixing well.  Stir in zucchini, nuts and raisins.

Divide batter over 2 greased 8.5×4.5″ loaf pans. Top with crumb topping if using, lightly pressing topping down into batter.  Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pans 10 minutes, then remove to rack to cool completely.

Freeze unneeded portions well-wrapped and unsliced to retain maximum freshness.