Let me Bake (from 12/24/09)

With the holiday season almost over so is my baking season. This time of year I devote several hours a day to baking savory loaves of bread, decadent cookies and lip smacking candies, all to give my loved ones. This year I grew in my garden zucchini, cucumbers and sunflowers. The sunflowers were the result of tossing the birdseed off my porch into the garden after sweeping and was harvested to feed the birds. The cucumbers never did very well, turning a odd color of yellow before reaching harvesting size, probably a result of over crowding by the zucchini. The zucchini took off growing to humongous lengths practically over night. Daily I would go out to pick a few only to find they had doubled in size.
With several dozen zucchini to work with I decided that this years Christmas gifts would included, you guessed it, zucchini bread. I had seen a recipe I wanted to try in a small recipe book, you know the kind you pick up for a few bucks up at the registers next to the celebrity newspapers. This one was put together by Betty Crocker and Gold Medal and is called, "Fall Baking - Cookies, Breads and Desserts", put out back in 2003. The recipe is called Raisin Nut Zucchini Bread and makes 2 scrumptious loaves in just an hour.
Recipe
Makes 2 Loaves (16 slices each)
3 medium zucchini, shredded (3 cups)
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts
1/2 cup golden raisins, if desired
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, with shortening. Mix zucchini, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into pans.
2. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool ten minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, be slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 1 week.
So there you have it the recipe I use to my my holiday zucchini bread and now to tell you what I do differently. I do omit the raisins. I don't care for them in this bread and I used walnuts. I buy them in a big bag when on sale and put the desired amount into a sandwich bag and take a rolling pin to them to crush them up. This helps take out any frustrations from the mistakes I have made while making the bread. I also found though trial and error that baking spray on the bottom of the pans allows the bread to release from the pan much easier than shortening and is less messy. ALWAYS remember to spray or grease the pan before pouring in the mixture if you do not plan on keeping the bread for yourself. I now have 3 loaves with torn bottoms because of this.
I've also found that actually using an electric mixture to combine the wet and dry ingredients incorporates the mixture better. Stirring is doesn't cut it I discovered as I bit into a slice from one of those torn loaves and got a mouth full of dry, overcooked flour. Yuck...the rest of the bread tasted amazing. It also rose better when mixed like this verses stirring.
What else can I say but try it. Whether it's vegetables from your own garden or you go buy it from a stand or market, making something like this for my family is a gift of it's own....the couple glasses of rum I had while cooking made it all that much better. My husband likes to cut himself a slice, heat it up in the microwave for a few seconds and then smother on butter....yummy.
Next post I'll be discussing more bread making from the "Fall Baking" book.  Until then.....Let me bake.