Caribbean Zucchini Bread

I found that there are hundreds of zucchini bread recipes circulating around the Internet. Hundreds. I also found that looking through the ingredient list with a discerning eye is not enough to ensure you don't end up wasting your time as well as your zucchini with a bad recipe. I made some very disappointing loaves of bread even though the recipe initially seemed appealing. Let me just say that there is nothing worse than going through the effort to bake something enjoyable for yourself and your family, only to take the first bite and find it *blah*. Please tell me I am not alone on this.

I went on a hunt to specifically find a zucchini bread that had great flavor and whose end result was moist and sweet like a pumpkin bread or banana bread. After narrowing down the recipes to four, I decided it was time to just start baking and see which one proved to give the most bang for my buck, so to speak. Well, there was one clear front runner, which had great flavor, was moist and sweet, and baked up like a charm--Caribbean Zucchini Bread.

The sweetness and flavor are enhanced from the inclusion of ripe bananas and the extra cinnamon. Most of the zucchini bread recipes I looked at called for 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, while this one called for an entire tablespoon. The Caribbean Zucchini Bread also added flaked coconut and toasted nuts, which can be easily omitted without affecting the flavor if you prefer. I personally like the added crunch and texture, but they were not the make-it-or-break-it ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used spelt instead)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 ripe bananas, mashed
3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans)
1/2 cup shredded coconut

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour two 9x5-inch loaf pans. Mix together flours, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

2. Beat the bananas, eggs, vegetable oil, applesauce, brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla together in a large bowl.

3. Stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture.

4. Fold in the zucchini, walnuts, and coconut into the batter until evenly combined.

5. Pour into the prepared pans. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 60-70 minutes. (Note from Holli: the original recipe called for baking only 40-50 minutes, which I found was not nearly long enough. I checked the loaves after 50 minutes and still needed to add 10 additional minutes two times before I thought the loaves were cooked through.)

6. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Recipe from Allrecipes.com; Modifications mine.

Yields: 2 loaves. Each 1/2-inch slice of bread contains: Calories 142; Total Fat 5.9g; Saturated Fat 1.2g; Cholesterol 16mg; Sodium 109mg; Total Carbohydrates 20.4g; Dietary Fiber 1.0g; Sugars 10.9g; Protein 2.6g; Vitamin A 1%; Vitamin C 3%; Calcium 2%; Iron 5%

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