Make, Create and Grow

I’ve been trying to decide if making this recipe is worthy of it’s own post, but I made some changes to the recipe, and would love to make it again. This is a great way for me to document the changes I made, my notes for next time and to remember the original recipe I used!

We had a good friend drop in with his parents, who are visiting from the USA. I wanted to make something that was classic Australian, so my first thought was lamingtons. The more I looked at recipes, the more I realised how many ingredients in them we don’t eat, and how we don’t really like them anyway! So I changed courses and decided to make something with produce from the garden. Enter zucchini! In my opinion, one of the most versatile vegetables that can be included in most baking, sweet or savoury!

Anyone who has grown zucchini knows the feeling of searching for new recipes to try and use the copious amounts of zucchinis you harvest. I’m not quite at that point of the season yet, we have a steady and manageable supply of zucchinis at the moment, but I found a recipe for chocolate zucchini bread and I was keen to try it. As my husband will quickly tell you, I generally use recipes a more of a guide, swapping and adding some (or most) of the ingredients! This was no different. Here is the original recipe https://www.loveandlemons.com/chocolate-zucchini-bread/ It looks and sounds delicious as is, but here are the few adjustments I made to suit us!

Firstly, this recipe makes 2 loaves, which I wasn’t keen on. Only because I was making adjustments, I didn’t want to make such a big mix of something that we may not have liked or didn’t work. I also don’t have 2 loaf pans! So naturally I thought it would be easy to just halve the recipe. Turns out halving 3 eggs, and trying to measure half of 1 3/4 cups is not overly accurate..

Ingredient alterations

• Swapped wheat flour for organic spelt flour, using the same ratio of white and wholemeal flour as the recipe indicates
• Used organic raw cacao instead of cocoa
• Used 2 eggs because I didn’t know who to halve one! I just added a little extra flour and cacao at the end to make it a little thicker consistency
• Used half honey and half coconut sugar
• Left out the choc chips – I can’t find one that don’t have a list of ingredients I’m not keen on eating, or feeding to Ruby
• Added chopped walnuts instead of the choc chips

I only cooked this for 30mins, which turned out to be perfect.

Hindsight, I wish I made the full batch with 2 loaves! Next time, I definitely will because it was so good! Soft enough to be fluffy and moist, but could still cut it like a bread and it held together, not too sweet, and the walnuts added a lovely texture through it. I’m just waiting on a few more zucchinis to mature and it’s first on the list to make again, zucchini slice can wait! I may have added a little Seasol to the plants yesterday afternoon, and some composted horse manure this morning to give them a little boost 😉

I need to work on my photography too. Both the technique, and actually remembering to take photos of things along the way! I’ll add it to my to do list lol.