I am not an adventurous eater. I subsisted on a diet primarily consisting of chicken nuggets for the first fourteen eight years of my life. I’m doing a bit better, though. I recently sucked it up and tried some Asian food and actually really liked it. Vegetables are still out.
So anyway, because of my rather staid eating habits, I never would have encountered this bread if it hadn’t been for a grade. In London, one of my classes basically consisted of field trips. For one of the field trips we went to an Indian restaurant (because London has such a huge Indian population). I was not thrilled, to say the least, but I was also starving, so I ate anyway. And ate. And ate. And ate. I actually really loved it, especially the naan.
And so, a year later, here I am. I got this recipe off of AllRecipes but ended up changing quite a few things because I forgot my grill pan at my apartment at school and I’m home with my parents for a few weeks. I’m not really adventurous enough to try the real grill on my own. For a yeast-based recipe, this would have been incredibly easy if it hadn’t been for the rolling out the dough portion. Seriously. Am I the only one on earth that can’t do this? My mother makes it look effortless. I end up with half of it sticking to the wax paper/cutting board/counter/ANYTHING I TRY and the other half sticking in little pieces to the rolling pin. Whatever.
So that’s it! This is really a pretty quick recipe, and it also makes really good naan pizzas. It’s infinitely customizable. This time I used garlic, but I want to try it again with some different seasonings and maybe some fillings. Fortunately it’s also really addicting, because 312 (heretofore referred to as David, because I finally confessed to having a food blog. I just feel like there’s such a stigma about blogs. Not so much food blogs, but you know those people that speak in that awful pleased with themselves voice about how “Oh yes, I just wrote about the dwindling state of the economy on my personal economics blog the other day…” Shut UP. I hate those people. I didn’t want to be one. I was a little embarrassed. But, it was getting inconvenient so I finally confessed. I didn’t tell him the name but he stalked it out anyway. Creepy. In return, I might as well use his real name) is approximately 339 miles away and unable to consume 50-100% of every recipe I make. What’s a few thousand calories anyway? I’m sure my bathing suit will still look awesome…ugh.
Enjoy!
Recipe
Adapted from AllRecipes
- 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2 teaspoons salt
- Scant 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3.5 cups bread flour, plus more for kneading
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional but highly encouraged!) I used garlic powder.
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
1. Proof yeast by combining it with warm water and sugar, stirring briefly, and allowing mixture to sit for about ten minutes. The top should be foamy by the time it’s done. This is hands down my favorite part of bread making. It’s so crazy to see it foam. I digress.
2. Add in milk, egg, salt, baking soda, and bread flour. Stir until soft dough forms. Try, try, try to avoid adding more flour. The original recipe called for 4 and 1/2 cups which was wayyyy too much.
3. Knead for about 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, then place in a well-oiled (non-metal if at all possible) bowl covered with a damp towel to rise for one hour. I use a trick David’s grandmother told him about turning the oven on to four hundred degrees for one minute then sticking the bowl in there. Just don’t forget to turn the oven off like I once did. Gross.
4. Punch down and separate into approximately 2 dozen golf ball sized dough balls. You can make them a little bigger if you want, you’ll just have denser or larger naan.
5. Lightly flour rolling pin and roll dough out into circle. Any shape will do, really, but if you can manage a circle (I usually couldn’t), that is ideal.
6. This is where it gets complicated. Ideally, you should cook these on a grill over medium high heat. As I said, I didn’t have a grill, so I put my pizza stone in the oven for 30 minutes on what my oven calls “low broil.” As high as 500 degrees should be fine. You should also be able to make these on an electric skillet or griddle, or, preferably, a cast-iron skillet. Try to avoid non-stick if you can, or it won’t have the nice brown spots and it probably won’t bubble as much. The skillets or griddles should also be on medium high heat.
7. Place circular dough onto pizza stone, skillet, etc. The cook time is really something you’ll have to judge for yourself, but I did about 2 minutes for the first side. Then I painted the top with the butter and garlic (combined), flipped it, painted the other side, and let it cook for about another minute. You’ll just sort of have to experiment since every method (and dough ball) will be slightly different.
Question: Why am I SO bad at self-discipline?
Seriously. I don’t know what my deal is. My apartment is horrifyingly messy, I have a paper due Friday I haven’t started, and my toilet paper situation has really reached a critical point. I NEED to buy more. 312 is tired of giving me his.
But what am I doing? Reading. Facebook stalking. Trying to convince that cat that she doesn’t really HAVE to sit on my keyboard while I’m trying to type.
Other people have self-discipline. Do you? Do you clean everyday? TEACH ME.
Fortunately, baking things I don’t need is a major part of being un-disciplined.
So I give you one of my favorite casual desserts on earth. I love these brownies (cookies? brookies?) because they look like you’ve put a lot of effort into them but they’re actually quite simple. Also basically everyone likes them, which is nice so that you’re not the person who brings the dish to the potluck that everyone takes one look at and goes “oh…those look so good but I’m just sooo….full.” And then proceed to devour the rest of the food on the table.
I got this recipe from Rainy Day Gal, who noted that Bakerella previously made these with boxed brownie and cookie mixes and a chocolate ganache. I leave off the ganache because that would be way too much on these. I really hope you’ll try the recipe though, because these brownies are to die for.
Try them. Seriously.
But before you do that, I’m looking for a book to read! Suggestions?
Enjoy!
Recipe:
From Rainy Day Gal, who seems to have gotten the brownies from Nestle and the cookies from AllRecipes
You can basically use any cookie or brownie you want, but I really do recommend these. They go really well together, and both puff up into really thick bars.
Either way, pour the brownie mix into the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. I HIGHLY recommend covering it with parchment paper first. After pouring the brownie batter, drop spoonfuls of cookie dough across the top. It really doesn’t matter if you’re neat about this. It should cover most of the top.
Put brownies in oven preheated to 325 degrees and then bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center is cleanish. Make sure you’re not hitting a melted chocolate chip when you do this.
Brownies
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tbsp water
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 12 oz packages semi sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1. Combine dry ingredients excluding sugar in bowl, set aside. To be honest, I skipped this step as I only used one bowl. Er, dutch oven.
2. Melt butter with sugar and water on medium heat until it boils. Immediately remove from heat and stir in ONE bag of chocolate chips
3. Add eggs and vanilla, whisking well.
4. Stir in dry mixture.
5. Add final package chocolate chips, stir. Pour into prepared 9 x 13 pan. See above.
These brownies are delicious by themselves btw. Just bake for 30-40 minutes. And the brownie batter-omg.
Cookies
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, MELTED
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups milk chocolate chips (or whatever you prefer)
1. Sift together dry ingredients excluding sugar, set aside
2. Cream together butter and sugars.
3. Beat in eggs and vanilla
4. Slowly stir in dry mixture, then add chocolate chips.
5. If making as cookies, bake for 15-17 minutes on 325.
It’s been a while! I had a post all written about these AMAZING lemon cookies, and they were even shaped like bunnies for Easter. Unfortunately, they were not the most photogenic cookies on earth. Maybe next time.
So instead I made this cake for you.
You won’t see a lot of cake on here, because to be honest, I don’t really like cake. I would take a brownie over cake any day. I wonder if I could have brownies instead of wedding cake. My mother would be absolutely horrified.
This cake is different though. I hate hate hate the word moist, but it really is an extremely moist cake, but in a good way. I hate when cakes are so dry they seem dusty. This one is nothing like that. Oh, and did I mention it’s from a mix.
Don’t judge me! It’s delicious despite being mix based. You use a box of cake mix, a box of pudding mix, and chocolate chips (hence triple chocolate 
). And some other stuff. Don’t blow it off for being a mix. It can’t help the way it was born 
And it’s super good!
Enjoy!
Recipe
Slightly Adapted from AllRecipes
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit
2. Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips and powdered sugar in bowl. Mix well.
3. Gently stir in chocolate chips. Mini chocolate chips are really necessary if at all possible, because full sized ones will sink to the bottom. Pour into 12 cup bundt pan.
4. Bake for 50-55 minutes (I did about 53) until a toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean. Make sure you’re not hitting a melted chocolate chip when you do so.
5. Cool for at least an hour and a half before inverting and cutting. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.
It’s been a chocolate chip cookie kind of week around here, so I apologize if you’re not a fan of this dessert. I can’t believe you, but I do apologize.
I feel like everyone has a chocolate chip cookie that’s “the best” to them, and certainly all the big food sites have those cookie recipes with thousands of reviews.
But. I just don’t know which one I like best. Every new one that I try I decide is my favorite. SO. In hopes of remedying that, every so often over the next few weeks I’m going to select one of those chocolate chip cookie recipes and taste test them.
This week’s selection is one of the number one chocolate chip cookies on AllRecipes (my obsession). It’s an easy recipe and bakes really quickly.
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes (plus time to soften butter)
Bake Time: 10 minutes
Recipe Difficulty: super easy
Dough Taste very heavy on vanilla…but is that really a bad thing?
Appearance: When simply dropped on sheet rather than rolled, relatively good cracked top, “bakery-style” appearance. I rolled the ones below and they’re not quite as attractive. However, all variations do seem to puff up really well.
Taste out of the oven: chewy, vanilla…y, and delicious
Taste the next day: cakey and a little bland
What I liked: Once I stopped rolling the dough into balls, I liked the appearance a lot. They look, and actually taste a lot like a cookie you would get at starbucks or something, and are nice and puffy.
What I didn’t like: I’m more of a chewy cookie kind of girl, and these were definitely a bit more dry after cooling. Still delicious, but nothing too inspired.
Verdict: good.
Of course, they got more good when I decided to bake them in ramekins with a candy bar in the middle as a makeshift molten lava cookie cake. If you try this, learn from my mistakes and put at least two layers of candy bars (I just used Hershey) in the middle to really get the lava effect. As you can see, mine kind of blended in.
Also, it’s better to overcook this variation that to undercook, else it will fall apart when you remove it from the ramekin.
Enjoy!
Recipe
Adapted from AllRecipes
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons hot water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips
- original recipe includes 1 cup chopped walnuts, which I omitted.
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream softened butter and sugars together. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla extract.
3. Dissolve baking soda in hot water, add.
4. Mix in salt and flour, stir in chocolate chips.
5. Drop by spoonful (size isn’t a big deal) on to baking sheet (I used my sil-pat here), bake for 10 minutes or until edges are well-browned.
Two things:
1) I’m all for any recipe that doesn’t require baking soda or baking powder. I always end up with either or both of these white substances all over my kitchen. This is more human error than anything else.
2) I LOVE graham cracker crusts.
This recipe has both of these things in its favor! Other plusses: it’s super easy and it tastes brilliant. What more could you want?
This was originally a Nestle recipe, but I was too lazy to make a pie crust really like graham cracker crusts (see above), so I changed that a bit. Otherwise I left everything the same and it turned out perfect. This is way easier than making actual cookies, and tastes way more like cookie dough, which is what I like best about chocolate chip cookies anyway.
It reminds me a lot of this Pizza Hut dessert, actually, which I ate at LEAST once a week when I lived in London and have been unsuccessfully trying to recreate ever since. You would think it would be simple, but I just can’t get the cookie to taste quite right.
Anyway.
(But really, why on EARTH does American Pizza Hut not serve this?)
So, in short, make this pie. It took me literally five minutes to put the filling together. The simplicity of it really cannot be underestimated. You only have to use one size measuring cup! And if that doesn’t convince you, my apartment smells DELICIOUS right now.
It looks so plain and unappetizing until you cut into it.
Two more things:
1) You can definitely substitute a deep-dish pie crust here instead of the graham cracker if you’re more of a traditional sort.
2) The only other important thing here is to remember to soften the butter completely (usually I skip this step…shhh…) and to use REAL butter. It won’t work nearly as well (or at all) with any kind of butter substitute.
Enjoy!
Recipe
Adapted from Nestle
- 1 unbaked 9-inch graham cracker crust (AllRecipes but I omitted the cinnamon) or deep-dish pie crust
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 cup chocolate chips (I omitted the nuts, so I did 1 cup semi-sweet and 1/2 cupish of milk chocolate)
- 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
- ice cream (recommended!)
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
2. Beat eggs for about a minute, then add flour and sugars. Beat well. Add butter, beat, then stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if including).
3. Spoon mixture into unbaked pie crust.
4. Bake pie in oven on cookie sheet for approximately 55 minutes, or until knife inserted halfway from edge comes out clean. Cool on wire rack completely, or until slightly warm. Top with ice cream and serve!
So once upon a time, 312 and I were on our way back from Costa Rica and we stopped at this restaurant called Fogo de Chao in Houston. This is a chain, so you may have been there or heard of it.
OMG.
This was one of the best meals of my life. First of all, the food was super well-prepared for a chain. More importantly, however, it was just fun. Waiters walk around with giant skewers of 15 or so different meats and offer them to you, there’s an awesome cold salad bar, etc. They also bring you this cheese bread. It looks so unassuming but it is. so. good.
So of course I wanted to remake it at home. I read recipes compulsively for a few days, but I finally settled on a really easy one. I figured if the low maintenance one was good but not great I could always try again with a more involved recipe. After a quick trip to the asian grocery store for tapioca flour (my bag said tapioca starch, same thing), I tried it.
And…they were okay. The texture was perfect. Brazilian Cheese Bread, or Pao de Queijo, has a really interesting texture. It’s crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. The texture on these things was perfect, but they just didn’t taste like much.
So I thought about it for a while, and was just about ready to make them again and increase the cheese and perhaps put some butter on top when they were fresh out of the oven when for some reason I thought of these garlic knots, which I frequently make as a vehicle to get this garlic butter topping into my mouth. This topping sounded AMAZING with the parmesany cheese bread.
And it was. Oh my goodness it was. This was by far one of the best ideas I’ve had in months. This isn’t saying much, because I’ve definitely been failing at life lately, but don’t let that deter you. Try this bread! It’s made in the blender: so easy and quick!
Enjoy!
Recipe
Cheese Bread-Adapted from Simply Recipes
Makes about 20 cheese breads
- 1 egg*
- 1/3 cup oil (olive, vegetable)
- 2/3 cup milk
- Scant 1 1/2 cups (170 grams) tapioca flour
- 1/2 cup (packed, about 66 grams) grated cheese, your preference. I preferred parmesan.
- 1 teaspoon of salt (or more to taste)
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Combine all ingredients in blender, blend until smooth.
3. Pour into greased mini-muffin tins, filling each tin about 3/4 of the way full.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned on top (I did about 16 minutes).
5. If using garlic topping continue below
Garlic Topping
Adapted from Emeril’s Garlic Knots
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons minced garlic, preferably fresh
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (dry works fine)
You definitely want to prepare this up to the melting stage (first stage) before putting the breads in the oven or you’ll run out of time.
1. Melt butter with garlic in small saucepan over low heat for 4-5 minutes or until garlic is tender and fragrant. Cover and put aside-keep warm.
2. When bread is finished, add romano and parsley to saucepan, stir well, and drizzle topping onto breads. (I painted it on with my silicon brush. You can also toss it in a bowl or plastic container). DON’T use all the topping or your rolls will be sickeningly buttery and garlicky. You could probably cut this recipe in half, but I like to have extra for dipping Just add the topping to taste.
I’ve given a lot of thought to how I could best convey the deliciousness of these muffins. For instance:
1. They’re the number one, highest reviewed recipe on AllRecipes, with over 6,000 reviews.
2. 312 consumed 3/4 of the pan in approximately 15 minutes
3. Explaining that they’re all the deliciousness of banana bread, but better, and with brown sugar and cinnamon all over the top.
All of these things are true, but they still don’t do these muffins justice. You’ll just have to try them.
In fact, these muffins might just be my favorite thing I’ve ever made. I’m a chocolate fiend, and I like challenging recipes (this one is so easy!), but I also like the satisfaction of finding the PERFECT recipe for something. The one where you’re not eating it going “well, if I just tweaked this maybe I could improve them a little bit more…” As much as I love to do that, there’s something nice about not having to.
Having said that, I did adapt it a little bit, some by accident. I added a little extra sugar to the batter, and used half brown half white sugar instead of just white, and I added some cinnamon to the batter. These muffins were still deliciously banana-y without being overly sweet.
In summary, try them! You won’t regret it! (Unless you hate bananas. Then maybe.).
Recipe
Adapted from AllRecipes
Makes 12 muffins
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 bananas, mashed
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
Topping
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon butter
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
- Mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder salt, and cinnamon in bowl. In separate bowl, beat bananas, sugar, egg, and butter. Stir banana mixture with flour mixture just until ingredients are combined and pour into muffin cups.
- Mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until crumbly. Sprinkle topping over muffins, being careful not to add more than a thin layer or muffins will not rise.
- Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.
Yes, there are two ‘cakes’ in that title. Get excited.
A while ago Jessica from How Sweet It Is posted these AMAZING cake batter pancakes. No flattery about it, How Sweet It Is is definitely my favorite food blog. It’s just so warm and friendly, you feel just like you’re cooking with her in her kitchen. Plus she hates vegetables and loves bacon! What more could you want?
Anyway, when I try one of her recipes, I know it’s going to be good. And the yellow cake batter pancakes were delicious. But I reallllyy love chocolate chip pancakes. I couldn’t help but try to take the amazingness of the cake batter pancakes and combine it with the deliciousness of chocolate chip pancakes. But if I was going to add chocolate chips, why on EARTH should I not add chocolate cake mix too? I mean really…
The chocolate cake mix, or cake mix in general really, gives these a really interesting flavor. The first bite is a surprise, because despite going to the trouble of making the cake batter pancakes, you’re still expecting normal pancake taste. They’re delicious though, and a lovely breakfast treat that doesn’t take any longer than pancakes from scratch. The chocolate cake batter version isn’t QUITE as attractive as the gorgeous plain cake batter, but they are super tasty, especially for chocolate lovers like me. I topped them with Jessica’s vanilla sprinkle glaze. Or what was left of it after I ate half waiting for the pancakes to be done.
Enjoy!
Recipe
Adapted from How Sweet it Is
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup chocolate cake mix
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 cups milk
3/4 cup chocolate chips
Combine flour, cake mix, baking powder, sugar and salt and mix. Add 1 cup of milk, egg and vanilla extract and stir. It should ideally look like regular pancake batter in terms of consistency, but you may have to add more milk after the initial 1 cup. Stir in chocolate chips.
Preheat skillet on medium heat (I used 275 degrees). Pour 1/4 cup batter into pancakes on skillet, cook until bubbles form on top. This was about 3 minutes for me. Flip and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Top with vanilla glaze.
Glaze: How Sweet it Is Recipe
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
assorted sprinkles
Mix milk, extract and powdered sugar until glaze forms. You may need to add more milk or sugar to achieve this consistency. Don’t be an idiot like I was and read the recipe as 1/2 cup of milk when it’s actually 1/2 TABLESPOON. Gross.
I hate when someone ruins a hypothetical scenario by bringing logic and reality into it. For instance:
Me: If you could eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?
Lame Person: Wellll, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but eating only one food for the rest of your life would bring about malnourishment rather rapidly, and…
I KNOW that, but it’s not like the chances of you ending up on a deserted island alone with only three books of your choosing are particularly high either, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what books you would choose.
That being said, if I had to eat only one food for the rest of my life it would be peanut butter.
I’m a bit of a peanut butter-aholic. Even my recent sojurn into actually noticing calories in foods has not been able to curb my habit.
I modified this recipe a bit from the original version to feed my peanut butter addiction. The cookies were already peanut butter cookies, but I added some peanut butter to the fudge as well. The result is much more subtly sweet than the full chocolate version, which I liked. However, I’ll include the original fudge filling recipe for those who don’t fantasize about swimming in vats of peanut butter.
Anyway.
These things are DELICIOUS, but subtly so. As in, you could eat 8 of these before noticing how rich they were. They’re also remarkably easy to make, and so they make a really excellent food to bring to a party when you want to look like you were slaving away in the kitchen when actually you spent hours playing iAssociate 2. Maybe that’s just me.
The extra peanut butter additions make this a little bit thicker than the original plain chocolate fudge. This means that it lends itself well to using interesting decorating tips, but the original version looks nice as well. You can see pictures here.
Personally, I love the peanut butter, but you must try one of these versions either way. The whole process only took me an hour!
Enjoy!
Recipe
Adapted from All Recipes “Fudge Puddles”
For the shells:
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup white sugar plus some for sprinkling
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the fudge-chocolate version is in parenthesis
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter chips (Omit)
- 1/3 cup peanut butter (Omit)
- 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Sift flour, baking soda and salt in bowl.
- Cream butter, peanut butter and white and brown sugars in separate bowl. Mix egg and vanilla in, then stir in flour mixture. Shape the dough into 48 1 inch balls. Sprinkle balls with white sugar. Place balls in mini muffin tin compartments.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned.. Remove from oven and immediately make wells in the center of each by pushing down in the center using the underside of a teaspoon measure. Cool in pan for 5 minutes. Then remove to wire racks. If shells stick, push lightly around sides with knife then remove.
- Once all shells are baked, put chocolate chips, peanut chips, and peanut butter in a double boiler over simmering water. Stir in milk and vanilla, mix continuously.
- Use a decorating bag or measuring cup to fill each shell. Top with pecan half, candy, etc.
Zucchini bread features heavily in my very first memory. I was just under two years old and my sister was at the hospital being born. My grandmother stayed at home with me making zucchini bread and scolding me repeatedly for tipping my chair back. I’m pretty sure I tipped it so far back that it fell over and hit the floor bringing me with it that time, so it’s really surprising that I can remember anything from the preceding 10 minutes at all.
Anyway.
Grating these by hand is not for the faint of heart. Learn from my bad example and use a food processor attachment if you can.
I am not a vegetable person. I’m the person at buffets looking sheepish with a plate full of meats, cheeses, and breads and other carnivorous (or at least omnivorous) items while everyone else is starting with a salad. I just can’t seem to get excited about them no matter how green and attractive they look on the plate.
This bread is the exception.
The bread itself is soft and just has this amazingly distinctive taste. I always have positive associations with zucchini bread but I can never quite recall the taste until after that first bite.
The recipe for the bread is one from AllRecipes.com, one of my obsessions. However, when I was planning to make it, I couldn’t help thinking that it could really benefit from a crumb topping like I’d recently put on blueberry muffins. Upon reading through other zucchini bread recipes on the site, along with their comments, I found that others felt the same way. I didn’t follow any of them exactly, I just sort of muddled along hoping it would turn out good.
This topping smells AMAZING…and it tasted pretty good too 
If you try nothing else, make the topping just so you can smell it!
If you try nothing else, make the topping just so you can smell it!
On the other hand, if you are healthier than I, the bread is delicious on its own, and a very good bread for not only sneaking in some vegetable, but most other small dry items as well. Dried fruit, nuts (the original recipe used walnuts), or chocolate chips like I used all do well here.
Enjoy!
Recipe
Adapted from AllRecipes.com Recipe: Mom’s Zucchini Bread
Zucchini Bread (2 Loaves)
- 3 cups (375g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 generous teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 2 1/4 cups (450g) white sugar
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups grated zucchini (approx. 3 medium sized zucchini)
- 1 cup dry add-in: chocolate chips, nuts, fruit, etc. (optional)
Topping
- 1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar
- 1/3 cup (41.67g) flour
- 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon (more to taste)
- 1 tablespoon butter
- Crushed nuts or finely chopped chocolate chips to taste if desired
- Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans well as dough is quite prone to sticking to pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together.
- Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together. Add sifted ingredients and beat until fully combined. Stir in zucchini and any optional add-in until well combined. Pour batter into pans.
- Combine brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and any additional crumb add-ins in small bowl and stir. Cut in butter until crumbly. A food processor works well for this step if you’re okay with a finer crumb.
- Sprinkle crumb topping over tops of loaves, being careful not to add more than a thin layer.
- Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes, remove from pan and cool completely.
