Sour Cream Zucchini Bread . . . When There's Life Left in Your Zucchini . . .

I found a small zucchini languishing in my vegetable drawer yesterday. It was just on the precipice of being overly ripe. I'll bet you have one like it languishing somewhere in your kitchen too. (Come on, I know you do. Go back and check that refrigerator again. Look in the back, on the bottom shelf. See it? It's been camouflaged by that pickle jar.)

Not sure whether to use it up or throw it away? Assuming it's still perfectly viable, don't throw it out! Make yourself a nice loaf of sour cream zucchini bread. If you want to, you can jazz the loaf up with chocolate chips, or chopped nuts, maybe some raisins. Or heck, nothing wrong with leaving it plain. (You know, like Thoreau said: "Simplify, simplify." He really did say that, didn't he?)

This is a really easy recipe that can be thrown together in a hurry. It can all be done in two bowls, with no mixer required, just a spoon. It's a good, moist quick bread that makes a satisfying snack, breakfast treat, or light dessert. Tastes even better the second day (don't you just love it when your baked goods do that?).


Sour Cream Zucchini Bread, with Chocolate Chips (or not . . .)

Makes one loaf.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1 1/2 cups of AP flour (bleached or unbleached)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup grated zucchini

3/4 cup of chocolate chips of your choice (I lean toward semisweet for this kind of thing)


Grease one 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan (or use baking spray).

In a large bowl, thoroughly combine all the dry ingredients, except the chocolate chips.

In a medium bowl, mix together the beaten eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla.

Add the grated zucchini to the liquid mixture and stir well to combine.

Pour the liquid zucchini mixture all at once into the flour mixture and stir just to combine. (Don't overmix or you'll end up with bubbly tunnels in a loaf that's not tender. No fun.)

Add in the chocolate chips, stirring to lightly combine.


Pour the batter into your greased loaf pan. Put the pan on the middle rack of your preheated oven. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the loaf is quite golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the top comes out clean. Cover the top of the loaf lightly with foil if the top is overbrowning at any point.

Let the baked loaf cool in the pan for about ten minutes, then turn it out and let it finish cooling on a rack.

Yummy if you slice it while it's warm, but the flavors really mingle and start to come out when the loaf has had a chance to rest and cool completely. And, like I mentioned above, this tastes really good, and the texture sorts of sets, by the next day. Kind of improves with age, I guess. Just like us.




*This is a recipe that I adapted from a version I found on a website called "Taste of Twinsburg." I made a number of changes, including halving the recipe. Then, I decreased the amount of oil, increased the sour cream, decreased the cinnamon, removed the nuts/raisins and replaced them with chocolate chips, and I completely revised the directions.

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