Zucchwinni!

Earlier this week, while babysitting my heart out, my cute little niece asked if I would make zucchini bread. Would I?! Talk about the most ultimate bonding experience you could have with two little girls. And yes, I realized I used "most" and "ultimate" together-- trying to let my emotion flow through the keyboard. :)

So we got their giant zucchini from their garden-- another plus I might add. And I immediately went to my go-to recipe site: www.allrecipes.com.

Maybe as a self-proclaimed foodies you would think that I might turn to something more gourmet or less mainstream. NOPE! I really like allrecipes because they allow people to rate the recipes and leave comments with their results and variations on the recipe. When I have oodles of time I love to pour through these comments... especially if I am missing an ingredient, which is usually the case!
But we were short on time... it was already bed time and I let them stay up *gasp* an hour late! I rock. I pretty much found the best recipe of all time... Mom's Zucchini Bread, with a 5 STAR rating and 3,311 votes. HELLO! Obviously this is a bomb.com recipe. And so, with my food loving friends, I share this bounty:

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• MOM'S ZUCCHINI BREAD

• 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 3 eggs

• 1 cup vegetable oil

• 2 1/4 cups white sugar

• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 cups grated zucchini

• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.

3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Nutritional Information Amount Per Serving  Calories: 223 | Total Fat: 10g | Cholesterol: 26mg 

Now, as I mentioned before, I did not have all of the ingredients-- NO BAKING POWDER! What's a girl to do? Well, if you don't have baking powder, you certainly don't have cream of tartar. Seriously. And then I found that you can substitute 1/4 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 cup buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt (to replace 1/2 cup liquid called for in recipe). So again, I am going to be honest... I didn't read the parentheses and I did not remove any liquid anywhere else. Well, in this Utah altitude that was MONEY! Talk about moist delightful... MUFFINS!

Warm happiness for the soul. 

That's right... I forgot to tell you our other variation... we made MUFFINS! This is very handy for giving a little girl a job... fill those muffin tins, soldier! 


So, the two little girls and I stirred and mixed to our hearts content (I had to step in a few times to get some powerful stirring happening), AND then we split the batter in half and each girl got to choose which color they want their zucchini muffins to be. Yes, I am magic... or just okay with food coloring. So we made watermelon red and aqua teal (turned out more green) zucchini muffins that were so cinnamony sweet, you knew these weren't health food muffins. 


Enjoy the recipe! 3,312 people already have! :D
-M