Zucchini Bread Revisted - A Healthier Version

Zucchini bread is one of our favourites. Since hubs and I are on a health kick, I decided to take my tried and true recipe for zucchini bread and make it healthier.

Basically I replaced the oil with mashed avocado! That's right. Avocado is considered a "good fat" since it is a monounsaturated fat.

I try to eat an avocado every day but hubs only likes them made into guacamole so I like to bake with them or cook them as part of supper as I do in my Chicken-Avocado Rollups.

I forgot to put the eggs in the picture

I never bake just one loaf or make just enough supper for one night. If I'm going to make a mess, I'm going to make it worth my while! So when I bake this bread I quadruple (4x) the recipe. It makes 4 small loaves or 3 regular sized. And best of all 1 avocado equals about 1/2 cup so if you quadruple the recipe you can use 2 avocados.

For one loaf you need:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar (I need to experiment with sugar substitutes to make this bread even healthier)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 beaten egg
1 cup shredded, unpeeled zucchini (I use my food processor but you can do this with a cheese grater)
1/4 cup cooking oil --> REPLACE this with equivalent mashed avocado. You could also use applesauce instead but make it homemade so that there is no sugar in it.
1/4 tsp. finely shredded lemon peel (rinse the lemon first in cold water)

Dry Ingredients

Method:
Grease an 8x4x2 inch loaf pan. Set it aside

Take a medium mixing bowl and stir together flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder and nutmeg. Make a little hole in the center. Set this aside

Wet ingredients

Take a second medium mixing bowl and add beaten egg (beat it with a fork first), shredded zucchini, cooking oil and lemon peel. Add this mixture quickly to the dry and stir it til it is moistened. The batter must be lumpy but mixed! No dry clumps. DON'T USE AN ELECTRIC BEATER as this makes the bread very tough. If the batter is too thick add about 1/4 Tablespoon of applesauce or oil

Add wet to dry ingredients

Pour batter into your greased loaf pan and bake in 350' oven for 55 to 60 minutes. You can tell if it is cooked by inserting a knife into the middle of the loaf. If the batter sticks to it, the loaf is not cooked through. If the knife comes away clean, the bread is ready.

Ready for the oven

Cool the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes then remove the bread and cool it on the rack. Wrap it and store overnight before slicing and eating. Wrap it well in tin foil then place in a ziplock bag and freeze if you want. This bread freezes well.

Fresh from the oven