Brown Sugar & Spice Zucchini Loaf Cake
Growing up, the smell of home baked goods wasn’t a common occurrence. Usually, if you smelled brownies or muffins baking it was because I stirred together a boxed mix from the pantry! Once a year, however, my mom would buy up all the zucchini she could and spend the entire weekend making a hundred loaves of zucchini bread to freeze for the next few months. It was a production, I can assure you. One kid was on grating duty, one was on mixing duty and my mom was managing timers and oven temperatures like it was a full time job. The best part was wrapping them all up in wax paper and aluminum foil, tucking them in the deep freezer like cozy little babies and dreaming about all the weekend breakfasts made better with a loaf. These days, I make my loaves two at a time, usually tucking one in the freezer for a rainy day.
Ingredients:
Makes 2 9x5 loaves
3 medium zucchini, grated on a box grater
¾ cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 ¾ cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
a pinch of salt
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and butter your loaf pans. You can also line them with parchment paper to make it super easy to remove the baked bread. Next, grate your zucchini with the largest holes on a box grater and put it in a colander in the sink to drain while you gather your other ingredients. In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugars with a whisk. Add the vanilla and eggs and whisk well. Next, add the ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt (trust me :) and mix well. Set that aside and press the zucchini into the colander squeezing the last bit of extra liquid out. Switch to a wooden spoon or rubber spatula and mix the drained zucchini into the wet mixture. Finally, sift the flour and baking powder over top of the bowl and fold together until just mixed through. Pour evenly into both loaf pans and sprinkle with a but of crunchy sugar if you’d like. Pop them in the oven and let them cook for about 30 minutes before turning them to face the opposite direction. Give it another 20 minutes and check for doneness. A finger pressed gently on top should not make a dent. Let them cool in the pans before removing. Slice and top with a smear of butter, most importantly, ENJOY!
