Wake and Bake {zucchini bread}

When people come to visit, I like to bake things. I think it’s welcoming and it makes it easy to have something on hand for snacking. In this particular case, I wanted to have something breakfast-y to offer and rather than make the old standard banana bread (don’t get me wrong, it’s delicious) I thought I’d go for zucchini bread.

As a child, the idea of zucchini bread was about the most confusing thing I’d ever heard.

Bread.

Made of vegetables.

That you eat for breakfast.

I found 6-year old anomalies like Halley’s Comet, the Apple IIc, first grade and the Iran Contra Affair to be less confounding than squash-bread. As is the theme here though, the idea of zucchini bread became more mundane just as my comprehension of geopolitics began to wane.

I had never made zucchini bread until this particular effort but think that it turned out well and plan on eating some more shortly. As with most quick breads, this recipe is hard to mess up and cooks for a while so you’ve even got a nice cushion so it doesn’t overcook. I think it’s good to have in my arsenal of breakfast breads and look forward to doing some seasonal expansion into the world of pumpkins soon. But for now:

Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease a standard sized loaf pan.

• 2-3 small zucchini (1 lb.) ends trimmed
• 2 cups AP flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup low-fat yogurt (I used Greek)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped

Grab a box grater and shred the zucchini. This part is fun.

Put the shredded zucchini in some cheese cloth or a clean dish towel and squeeze out the excess water.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together in a large bowl. In another, smaller bowl, whisk the sugar, melted butter, eggs, yogurt and lemon juice until smooth.

Now fold the sugar/yogurt mixture and zucchini into the dry ingredients but don’t over-mix. Fold in the pecans.

Pour mixture into your prepared loaf pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean – for about an hour, rotating halfway through.

If you’re like me, all bread is simply a butter-delivery system. Honestly, most things can be made into butter-delivery systems (including pretzels and my finger). This bread does just the trick. Berries mitigate guilt.

Happy breakfasting and/or gifting of loaves of zucchini bread for the holidays. For extra irony, you should bake me some as a present.