If you’ve ever grown zucchini in your garden, you know it’s very prolific. Most of the time. This year, our plants were sadly flooded out, but because they were so prolific the year before, we still have gobs of shredded zucchini in our freezer. 😅 Usually, we’ll make our regular zucchini bread recipe, but once in a while, we like to mix it up with this recipe. It’s rich and chocolatey and basically tastes like brownies. Brownies with veggies in them? Win.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour (1 cup white, 1 cup whole wheat is what we do)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
1/2 cup oil (canola, vegetable, or melted coconut oil)
1 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups shredded zucchini, drained and packed
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, divided
1/4 cup ground flax (optional)
1/4 cup wheat bran (optional)
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease two loaf pans with cooking spray. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, sea salt, and wheat bran and flax, if using. In a large bowl, add eggs, melted butter, oil, vanilla, and brown sugar. Stir until mostly smooth. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in the shredded zucchini, followed by 1 1/2 cups of the chocolate chips. Divide batter into the two pans and top with the remaining chocolate chips. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (there may be some melted chocolate, but not gooey batter). When baked, remove from the oven and set on a wire cooling rack. Cool fifteen minutes, then run a knife around the edges of the bread and carefully remove bread from the pan. Cool another ten minutes before slicing. Store in an airtight container.
