Yes I am aware it’s the beginning of May. But it was not until this week that life slowed down enough for me to want to pick up my hobbies again. So I know I am  once again due to give you a life update and that this post is way overdue but here it is: this is my contribution for April’s Bread of the Month.

In the past when Luke had work breakfasts I used to go to my wide selection of muffin recipes and bake one (as you have seen in past posts). But recently I have gotten tired of putting in the work of lining each muffin tin or buttering/greasing the pans then cleaning the baked on crevices after. For more info on this see my post: Living without a dishwasher.

So  instead I decided to try switched to making breakfast breads. They are less of mess to make and clean and just as quickly eaten up.   The great thing about breakfast breads also is that if you have carrots, zucchini, bananas, apples, lemons etc. around the house it’s easy to mash, shred, or cut it up to put in an oven baked bread. Unlike other yeasted breads breakfast breads/loafs,  just like muffins, are very moist but quick to throw together with no waiting time. (I’ll fill you in on a secret; breakfast breads/loafs are really muffins in disguise or vice versa depending on how you see it).

I had two zucchini’s leftover in my fridge from a recent dinner and decided they would make a great spring breakfast bread. I went to my every-handy Bread Bible and found a great recipe:

Instead of greasing one 9 by 4 inch pan I chose to butter and flour much smaller pan for us to have a nice mini-loaf to keep and eat at home and one of my 9 by 4 inch pans for Luke to take to work (I just didn’t fill the 9 by 4 inch pan as full). I preheated the oven to 350F then used one of my favorite toys eh . . tools: my kitchen aid mixer. I placed our shredder/grater attachment on and quickly and easily shredded both zucchini’s.  I then took some paper towels to the shredded zucchini to absorb the moisture leaving only the zucchini “meat”.

Next I combined the wet ingredients: 1/4 cup vegetable oil with 1 1/2 C sugar. If you want to make this recipe more healthy you can choose to replace the sugar with honey  or brown sugar of equal amount.  Once the sugar and oil were incorporated I added three large eggs and 2 tsp of vanilla extract. After this was well blended I added the grated zucchini.

In a separate bowl I combined the dry ingredients: 2 C unbleached flour: the original recipe was not whole wheat I used half whole wheat flour and half regular flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, and I added more ground cinnamon and cloves then the recipe called for 2 tsp each. If you want to spice up your bread even more you can add 1 tsp nutmeg and or 1 tsp ginger as well.

The original recipe at this point also called for adding 1 C of walnuts or raisins neither of which I chose to include. Instead I added 1/2 C more zucchini then the original recipe called for (originally 2 C shredded). Then I combined the wet and dry ingredients.

Last of all, the easy part: spooning the batter into the pans and placing them into the oven. My loafs only took about 50-60 minutes for the top sto be firm and the toothpick to come out clean. The smaller one I think I took out at 50 minutes and the larger one five to ten minutes later.

The original recipe called for a brandy or congnac glaze but since this bread was made for a breakfast instead of  a dessert or snack I decided to go without it.  As with most breads and baked goods with baking powder in them, the flavor is better after they have been stored in plastic wrap and cooled/refrigerated overnight.

The bread tasted great; just enough sugar to balance out the veggies but not so much that if felt like dessert for breakfast. From now on I think I will do breakfast breads (with a mini-loaf for us to share at home) instead of muffins. At least for now.

What about you?

What is you favorite baked breakfast good?