Sometimes I Bake: Zucchini Brownie Bread

So sometimes I'm creative in ways other than writing. Here's one of them! Baking. But, really, not that often. Because if I bake, that means I eat what I bake. And I have no self-control.

I've had these zucchinis sitting on my counter for a bit, waiting to be made into bread. Let's be honest, now that it's the end of the season, we're not going to be eating them for dinner. We need zucchini bread! Perhaps enough to last us through the winter! (Although, I did see a pin on Pinterest for some zucchini that looked pretty good and amazingly it wasn't inside bread ...)

Then I decided I wanted chocolate zucchini bread, but all the recipes had cinnamon. I have nothing against cinnamon. I actually happen to love it. I don't really have anything against cinnamon and chocolate, it's just not what I wanted. I wanted something more brownie tasting, but in a bread. After a fruitless search, I just decided to make my own recipe, which I'm sharing here. I used a combination of my trusty zucchini bread recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (a great, basic cookbook. Love it.) and a zucchini brownie recipe I found here.

Source: verybestbaking.com via Ranee on Pinterest

First off I compared the ingredients to see what I would need to make the brownies into bread. I came up with this:

3/4 c. whole wheat flour*

3/4 c. flour*

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/3 c. cocoa

3/4 c. chocolate chips

1/4 c. oil

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups shredded zucchini

*Since it was going to be pretty chocolaty, I figured this would be a good place to do half and half with whole wheat flour. If you want to use all regular flour, use 1 1/2 cups flour.

And then I got started.

First off, puree my zucchini. Most zucchini bread recipes call for shredded. I have a pair of picky eaters in my house, so I puree it. It makes everything a bit more moist and more fall-apart-prone, but at least the boys eat it. Although, in this case, not sure I want them to share. I ended up with 2 cups of puree, which I wasn't sure I would use all off since the recipes actually only called for somewhere between 1 cup and 1 1/2 cups.

Next up, flours, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. I mixed these all together and set them aside.

In a microwave safe bowl, I melted the chocolate chips. It took about 2 minutes, stirring every thirty seconds to make sure they didn't scorch. (Normally I don't like using my microwave to melt chocolate, but I wanted to go for easy today and not get my double boiler out.)

Once that was melted and nice and smooth, I added the sugars, egg, oil, and vanilla and mixed it all up.

Then added it to the dry ingredients.

At this point, I got a little worried because it didn't look like batter at all. That's when I knew I'd need more than 1 cup of zucchini. 

I added just one cup anyway, and like I thought, it was still too thick. (More like brownies than bread.) So I dumped in all 2 cups, crossing my fingers the zucchini taste wouldn't overwhelm the chocolate.

The consistency was now much closer to what my usual zucchini bread consistency is.

So I filled up my pans, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best. (I also sprinkled some chocolate chips on top before I popped them in the oven.)

And seriously guys, it is AMAZING. I love it. It's got more of a fall-apart cake consistency than bread. So maybe go for slightly less zucchini than I did -- or shred it like you're supposed to. :D Mmmmm. Seriously, I'm in danger of eating ALL OF IT. In one sitting.