Zucchini Bread from a Church Cookbook

The garden is producing zucchini, so much there is pressure to do something with it. Zucchini bread is a traditional way to use the excess… some of it, anyway.

Zucchini bread is a seasonal dish predicated on having a surplus of the vegetable. Home cooks don’t usually go out and buy zucchini. Confronted with garden reality, or a gift from a friend, there is an urgency to do something with it before it spoils.

I reached for recipes from my childhood neighborhood during the 1950s through ’70s. The recipe I found didn’t really work in 2023.

JoAnn Ehrecke submitted a recipe for zucchini bread to the Family Favorites cookbook published by Holy Family Parish, Davenport Iowa in 1977. It used four cups of shredded zucchini, which is a lot. I had been to the Ehrecke home at least once while I was in school, so the recipe came with a positive vibe. Not only is it a product of the 1970s, it is set in that time. I followed the recipe with some adjustments to accommodate vegan eaters and modern times. The result was a dense, sweet loaf, more like cake than bread. We’ll use it, but won’t return to this experimental recipe.

There were problems:

While I knew to put the grated zucchini in a tea towel and press the excess moisture out, there was no such instruction in the recipe. If I hadn’t performed this basic culinary task the loaves would have been a disaster of moisture.

My typical egg replacement is applesauce. I think the recipe relies on the leavening quality of eggs to give it a rise. Applesauce added flavor, but not leavening. Applesauce also tends to be a substitute for oil in recipes, although in our vegan cornbread recipe it serves as an egg.

Along those lines, 1-1/2 teaspoons of baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder did not seem like enough leavening. The crumb wasn’t a crumb at all. More like a gooey, sweet mass with a crust. There are positive qualities in that, but it is not a bread.

Finally, the baking time of 50-60 minutes was too short. The 325 degree oven worked, yet it took longer. A toothpick did not come out clean until 90-100 minutes. When I cooled and cut into a loaf, it was exceedingly moist inside. The flour taste was gone and the sweetness of the sugar and flavor of apples and cinnamon stood out. That part was good.

The saving grace of this result was a loaf that could be used as a dessert. Cut a thick slice and re-heat it in the microwave or fry it to make a crispy crust. Drizzle with apricot preserves, honey, or your favorite jam, add in-season fruit like raspberries, or pour on a little chocolate ganache. It would be good to go for regular or formal dining.

The path to this dessert was unexpected. Recipes in old church cookbooks assume a lot, much of it lost in the decades since that culture thrived. In any case, we’ll have dessert for a week and I used up the three largest zucchinis. Now what shall I do with today’s crop of zucchini?