Zucchini Bread

When my boyfriend was growing up, he had a neighbor that grew zucchini. Every year he would bring over a basket of zucchini and Dan’s mom would make some zucchini bread for him in return. This recipe for zucchini bread comes from his family and has been been tested and approved through all the years. This recipe makes two larger loaves, though sometimes I opt to make half in loaf format and half in muffins, or just halve the recipe to make one loaf. Sometimes I top the bread with a sugar glaze, granola, or nuts.

Last Sunday we went to Hollins Farm to pick fruits and vegetables, including zucchini. Truthfully, I picked five small zucchini (about the size of my finger) just for their squash blossoms. After harvesting the squash blossoms, I grated the zucchini and had just enough for one loaf of bread. Waste not, want not!

Update: This bread always go so fast, so I originally published this post with Instagram photos with the promise of updated pictures and an attempt at zucchini bread with pineapple or dried fruit in it to make this bread perform double duty. I’m happy to report that I was forced to improvise this version recently when I was short a ½ cup of zucchini and 1 egg. I added in ¼ cup pineapple, ¼ pineapple juice, and a couple handfuls of dried pineapples and walnuts. The batter was looking a little thin so I added a couple spoonfuls of Crunchy Biscoff Spread before popping them into muffin liners and topping with granola, banana chips, and chia seeds to make them “healthier”. I tasted one and they were incredibly moist and delicious even two days later. This version is great, but some people hate nuts or pineapple in their baked goods, so know your audience well.

Piña Colada Cupcakes – Happy 21st Birthday Ariel!

My sister recently turned 21 years old and to surprise her, my mom collected her friends, family, and Girl Scout troop at a local restaurant. Of course, she tasked me with bringing dessert. Since my sister turned 21, I figured I’d incorporate some booze in the cupcakes, but not too much since many people were still under age.

These cupcakes are not too sweet and are extremely moist. The coconut in the frosting keeps it from getting too heavy and while the cupcakes were cooling, I brushed some extra booze on top. My sister’s nickname is “Bear”, so I made some bear-shaped chocolates to go on top too. I put some almond extract in to simulate the orgeat syrup that is often used in tiki-style drinks.

I made some extra to bring in to work the next day; they keep great overnight because of all the moisture from the fruit.

Banana & Cream Cheese Muffins

I was snowed in this weekend (still snowed in actually!), and didn’t have a chance to eat the bananas I had picked up for on-the-go breakfasts. They were looking awfully brown, so I decided to make banana muffins! This was a great recipe because it used up the last of my cream cheese, butter, and of course, bananas.

A quick search through my Google Reader yielded many results, but I don’t have a loaf pan and I didn’t have any whole or buttermilk on hand. I also didn’t have any nuts, so I subbed the cup of nuts in the recipe below with an extra banana.

Cupcake Exchange: Chocolate Chai Spice


The first snow of the year! (Dec 5th)

I went to a Cupcake Exchange/Bake-Off as part of a Yelp event. I really like Chai, but I don’t like buttercream frosting, so I was interested as to how these would turn out. The recipe, from The Cupcake Blog, had a recipe to make your own chai spice, but I chose to buy Chai teabags and cut them open.

These cupcakes turned out surprisingly delicious! The chocolate wasn’t too deep and the cake was firm (with a crust on top) yet soft on the inside. I didn’t really get the chai flavor, but it might be because of the chai that I used and the fact that this was a chocolate cake.

This was also my first attempt at piping frosting (which I think turned out alright). I tried to make chocolate mint leaves, but I didn’t put enough chocolate on the leaves so when I peeled the chocolate off, the leaves broke. I was able to salvage about three leaves from the fifty I attempted to make and put silver dragees on the rest.

I didn’t win first place, but I did win third (which I later learned was actually 4th place after some math was recalculated). The first place winner was a blow-torched graham cracker crust S’mores cupcake and second place was an Irish Car Bomb cupcake, which I couldn’t really compete with. If I had a molten lava center to this cake, I’m sure I would have won!

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