Grandma’s Zucchini Bread

 Zucchini Bread

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 3 cups flour, sifted
• 3 tsp cinnamon (OR 3 tsp nutmeg and cinnamon mixed) 
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder 
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups zucchini, shredded
• 1 cup walnuts (optional)

1- Shred zucchini, draining any excess liquid and patting dry with a paper towel 

2- Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla

3- Mix in oil and zucchini

4- Mix all dry ingredients in separate bowl 

5- Add dry ingredients slowly into egg mixture

6- Fold in nuts after ingredients are fully mixed

7- Separate into 3 greased loaf pans (or six greased mini loaf pans)

8- Bake at 350°F until toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean (about 48 minutes for full sized loaf pans)

My grandma’s zucchini bread was something that we all looked forward to when I was growing up. I have many memories of cutting a piece and warming it up in the microwave for a few seconds, and slathering on some Country Crock. Her recipe is perfectly soft, and when made correctly has just the right amount of spice. (Oops, is that foreshadowing?)

I think I have mentioned in a past blog that when I got married, my aunt made me a recipe book as a wedding gift that contained all of my grandmas holiday recipes. She mostly made zucchini bread in the summer/fall when people would bring her zucchini from their gardens. Most of the recipe cards were photocopied, unless they were in too poor condition to be able to read. She photocopied my grandmas zucchini bread recipe, which I then typed into a document so I could start compiling family recipes. Because I am human, I am sure you have noticed by now that I have made several mistakes along the way with this blog. A few have been from misreading, and a few have been from mistyping the recipe. But this time, I swear it wasn’t my fault! 

This recipe is what is in the book my aunt made me. This is my grandmas handwriting, but I remember last year when I was typing the recipes up that I questioned how this one was written. I kept trying to guess if it was saying 3tsp cinnamon AND 3tsp nutmeg or 3tsp cinnamon/nutmeg mixed. I sent a picture of the card to several people, and almost everyone said it was 3tsp each of cinnamon and nutmeg. That seemed like an awful lot of nutmeg to me, as nutmeg is a very potent flavor, but I have been wrong before so I trusted those around me. 

WRONG. 

This weekend, right after I made the zucchini bread, I stopped by to drop off a (very) late Christmas present to my uncle and while I was visiting with my aunt I asked her if I could go through my grandmas recipe box. It was then that I found grandmas original zucchini bread recipe, and saw that it was either 3tsp of cinnamon OR 3tsp of cinnamon mixed with nutmeg. Not to say “I told you so…” but man I KNEW IT. 

Anyway, we will circle back to the nutmeg debacle later. With recipes like this, where you have to grate something to a specific cup measurement, I always tend to second guess myself. There is really no way to know if you’re going to have enough zucchini. I opted to go with four decent sized zucchinis, and said a prayer that it would give me 3cups worth of shredded to complete the recipe. I am going to be honest, I don’t know what I was more afraid of; not having enough zucchini or having zucchini left over. I really don’t like zucchini. 

Now, I know you may be thinking, “McKenzie, if you don’t like zucchini, why are you making zucchini bread?” Great question! That’s because I don’t like zucchini, but I love zucchini bread. I will accept no further questions at this time. 

If you were to ask my uncle about this topic, he would immediately tell you that “vegetables don’t belong in desserts!” The man has very strong feelings about carrot cake. 

Wow, let’s get back on track. I grated the zucchini one at a time, using my hands to squeeze out any excess liquid and I spread the shredded zucchini out on a paper towel to help absorb any moisture I couldn’t squeeze out. Once the paper towel was full, I placed another paper towel on top and patted the zucchini dry. 

I dumped any liquid remaining in the bowl before I started grating the next zucchini. I probably could have gotten away with only using 3 of the zucchini’s, but the measuring cups weren’t exactly full. After grating up the fourth one, and packing the cups full, it didn’t seem like it was an excess amount either. Maybe splurge and get that fourth zucchini. I was also a little afraid the zucchini would stick to the paper towel and be a nightmare to remove, but to my surprise, it was easy to just fold the paper towel over and the zucchini came right off.

 

Now we are ready to bake! If you are adding nuts, go ahead and chop those up now. I had walnuts left over from the fruit cake recipe, so I just used what was left. My plan for this was to give a loaf to my parents, my brother/brother-in-law, and obviously one for my husband and I. My parents were the only ones who wanted nuts, so I added theirs in at the end. You’ll see that later. 

I started by adding the sugar, brown sugar, and eggs into the bowl. I actually forgot the vanilla at this point, and added it in when I added the zucchini and oil, but hey that’s okay. While the egg and sugar was mixing, I combined all of my dry ingredients into a separate bowl. It was at this point that the self-doubt of 3tsp of nutmeg came creeping back in. 

As I mentioned before, nutmeg is a very potent flavor. I remember making something in culinary school, I don’t remember the exact recipe, and one of the chef’s talking about how nutmeg is very strong and you should use it sparingly. As I was putting in the 3tsp, I thought it smelled way too strong compared to what I remember my grandma’s being. For some reason, this really smelled like tea to me. I can only attribute that to the large amount of nutmeg, but my brother-in-law said he thought the finished bread smelled like tea too. 

When I make this again, I think I would do either 2tsp cinnamon + 1tsp of nutmeg, or 2.5tsp cinnamon + .5tsp of nutmeg. But I will say, even with reading the instructions wrong, it was absolutely still edible with 3tsp of each. 

The next step is really just combining everything. I added the zucchini, oil, and the vanilla that I forgot. Let it mix until combined. Then added the flour mixture, about a 1/3 cup at a time while mixing on low. 

The recipe did not specify to sift the flour, but I think for this recipe that should be a necessary step, so I have added it into the instructions. I am only guessing here, but I think with the way the shredded zucchini sort of clumps up around the whisk attachment, the flour doesn’t get as broken up as it should be. So I did end up with some small clumps of flour in the final batter. 

I decided to use disposable loaf pans this time around, because I only have two metal loaf pans. I figured they would probably cook at slightly different times if I used different pans, and I didn’t want to have to watch them that closely, as there was no bake time listed on this recipe and I was already worried I would accidentally over bake them. I just used cooking spray to grease them.

For the loaf with nuts, I simply sprinkled them on top and gently mixed with a fork. Then I added more on top so I knew for sure which one had nuts. 

I put them in the oven for 10 minutes at a time before coming back to check. It took about 48 minutes for them to be fully cooked, and a cake tester stuck in the middle came out clean. I pulled them out of the oven and set them on a cooling rack to cool completely before covering. 

This zucchini bread came out truly delicious and moist. Even with the extra nutmeg, it was still very good, and my brother said it tasted like it did when grandma used to make it. If you make this recipe, I encourage you to try to play around with the amount of nutmeg and cinnamon and see what you like best! 

I started this blog grieving over the loss of my grandma, with the intention of getting recipes from every branch of my family to keep for more generations. In this past week my family has experienced two losses. My great great aunt Mary, who lived to be 101! And a longtime friend of my grandma and grandpas, Al. 

Unfortunately we are in a season where the weather is cold, everyone is fighting the flu, and trying to process grief in their own way. I am so thankful to have my grandmas recipes to bake on a cold day, while I think about her and my grandpa welcoming old friends with open arms, in a place where they are healthy and happy and pain-free. I know my grandparents are somewhere, rejoicing at the reunion. My grandma being the bright, shining light that she always was here on earth. I know that my grandma was there to welcome aunt Mary, even though they are from two different sides of my family. I know that grandma and grandpas are somewhere laughing with Al, and catching up about the years he spent in Florida. These thoughts bring me so much joy and peace to ease the heartbreak of loss.

The most egregious part of loss is that life continues to move on around you. I cannot help but think about all of the people I have loved that are now gone, and what their favorite foods were, and if they left behind even one recipe at all. So, hug your family tight, and write down your recipes, because there are only two types of recipes. Ones that we share, and ones that are eventually lost forever.