Moist Chocolate Zucchini Loaf

This chocolate zucchini loaf got rave reviews when I brought it to work the other day. It has enough chocolate to satisfy the chocolate lovers, but people also appreciated that it’s not too sweet. Plus we all pretended we were eating something healthy because the recipe contains zucchini, whole wheat flour and olive oil.

As a baker who is usually too busy to bake these days, I like recipes in which I don’t have to wait for butter to soften and then cream it. This is one of those recipes where you can just combine all the wet ingredients and fold them into the dry ones, so it’s relatively quick. But you do have to grate the zucchini – no big deal.

I made the full recipe when I baked this, but here I halved the recipe so it is only one 9 x 5 x 3 loaf. I didn’t use the walnuts because I knew some people would like it better without, but if it was just up to me I’d have put them in.

I found the recipe here.

What you do:

• Softened butter, for the pan
• parchment paper
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted (optional)
• 4 ounces semisweet (or dark-my favourite) chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup fine-grained turbinado sugar (I just used white sugar)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups shredded zucchini

What you need:

1. Prepare the loaf pan by greasing it with butter. Then cut a piece of parchment paper that is long enough to come up on the two long sides over the top of the pan, so you will be able to pull the loaf out by pulling on the paper. Grease the parchment paper as well.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F.
3. In a large bowl whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the chocolate chips and the nuts if you are using them.
4. Grate the zucchini.
5. In another bowl whisk together the olive oil, buttermilk, egg, vanilla and sugar. Mix in the grated zucchini.
6. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry, being careful not to over mix.
7. Bake for 50 minutes, rotating the pans once half-way through the baking. Test the loaf by inserting a toothpick. It should come out almost clean. Place the loaf on a cooling rack for 20 minutes before removing from the pan.
8. Enjoy! You can freeze this loaf, or part of it, if people don’t eat it all right away. It is good for a few days after baking. Yum.