What do you do when your co-worker hands you squash that really are bigger than babies some women have given birth to? And about a week later, brings you more, just smaller ones? Oh, and did we forget to mention the 3 medium sized zucchinis you bought at the farmer's market on the way to deliver one of the humongous zucchinis to your best friend? Regardless of the Provencal style stuffed zucchini, and the tomato, leek and zucchini galette(puff pastry veggie pizza), and other creative uses-temporary door stops, if need be you will end up making zucchini bread. I don't think zucchini pickles well.
Before Emeril, zucchini and I have always had a rocky relationship...the elements were just not quite right...my nephew would not eat my zucchini bread after a while. It wasn't ever bad, it just didn't match his Grandma Judy's zucchini bread. It was always light in color(the skins left on give it the color) or something else just wasn't perfect about it.
So I began my journey to making zucchini bread again. I made it the first time, following the recipe relatively closely...I ended up with closer to three cups of zucchini than two, so I added a little extra of each of my dry goods; and I doubled the cinnamon, just to see. I forgot to add in and toast the walnuts, but since I was attempting to get every ingredient in the recipe in, even if not in the correct amounts, I pulled the zucchini bread out of the oven, chopped a large handful of walnuts, and drizzled them over the bread and muffins I was baking. I popped them back in and had a fun element of toasted walnuts on top. I felt like a frickin' genius.
I gave it to James and he asked for more, and promptly took his half of the loaf home and made it disappear. As I made batch number 2, out of the first run of zucchini I decided to take some into work. Jeff was amazed at my instant turn around on bread delivery as he gave me more zucchini. That evening, I made him a loaf and a dozen muffins as well.
The next time I made this loaf, almost out of necessity, and I have a few more batches to go, I put in a little more zucchini than the second batch, a little too much flour, I added half brown and half white sugar, and I replaced about half of the oil with applesauce. It was a little more dense than the others were. I'll add a bit more zucchini again--I have to use these things. And I'll keep the flour closer to the prescribed amount. I will still use the applesauce in place of some of the oil and we shall discover if that is causing the dryness-though I have not experienced that in the past.
I think I will take some of this into my class tomorrow and maybe make a loaf tomorrow night to spring on my nephew and see if its up to his high standards. The rest of us love it, so maybe this time I'll tell him its just him.
Since I already have, I'm sure I will definitely make this dish again.
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