Yesterday was one of my best friend’s birthdays. And naturally, as a good friend would, I baked her a nice little birthday treat!
This particular friend of mine is Vegan, so her treat needed to be a Vegan-friendly treat. I didn’t want to make her something too sweet or too heavy; I was thinking it needed to be something along the lines of a muffin or bread. I’ve already baked her muffins before, so I decided to go the bread route this time. Noms!
After making my baking decision, I grabbed my purse, and took off to our city’s Co-Op. There, I selected the most beautiful and fresh produce available, grabbed pretty packaged flours and all-natural sweeteners, and headed straight to the cash register. I had no time to waste. My husband and I were meeting the birthday girl and her husband for dinner at 7pm…and it was already 3:30pm. Yikes!
Once home, I put my apron on, turned the oven and some music on, got my baker’s tools and gadgets out, and began prepping the ingredients for the birthday masterpiece. I was just in heaven. There is some kind of peace or therapy to baking for me. And when I do it for someone else, the experience goes to a whole new level of greatness (I believe it’s because I know that my creation will put a smile on someone’s face and make them say “yum”…I live for this kind of stuff!)
Once the bread was done baking, I removed it from the oven and immediately placed it on a cooling rack to let it cool completely. This is KEY; your bread must cool completely before you remove it from the bread pan. If not, the bottom of your bread will stick to the bread pan and it will not come out whole. So please, arm yourself with patience and let it cool completely. 🙂
By the time we needed to leave our house to make it to dinner on time, the bread was not done cooling. (Noooooo!) I had to leave without it. We met with our friends and had a wonderful time together catching up and celebrating. Once dinner was over, we returned to our building (we are neighbors) and I went straight to our condo to get her treat.
She texted me the next day and told me that she had not one, but two slices…and that she just loved it! YES — mission accomplished!
I made our family a loaf too, and we enjoyed it tonight after dinner. Just like my friend, I ended up having TWO slices! But my husband takes the medal on this one — he was two slices shy from finishing the ENTIRE loaf! He is too funny. When he does things like these (when he keeps coming back for more and more), I know I’ve got a winner recipe.
I think its safe to say that you will enjoy a slice (or two) of this Vegan Zucchini bread very much. Go out, get your ingredients and get your baking on!
- 3 medium spotty bananas
- 2 zucchinis
- ½ cup apple sauce
- ½ cup grapeseed oil
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup raisins
- Coconut oil spray (to grease bread pans)
- Prep al of your ingredients ahead of time.
- Lightly grease bread pans with coconut oil spray. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Plug in your food processor and add to it the shredder blade to grate your zucchinis. Once grated, place in a mixing bowl and set aside. Wash your food processor.
- Now add the regular blade to your food processor, place bananas in and process until smooth. Once smooth, add in grapeseed oil, applesauce, sugar, vanilla extract and mix well.
- Pour mixture over the grated zucchini and using a spatula, combine ingredients well.
- On a separate mixing bowl, add in your dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda and sea salt. Mix to combine.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix well.
- Fold in the walnuts and raisins.
- Transfer batter into your two bread pans and bake for 60 minutes (make sure you do the toothpick test; if more time is needed, let it bake for a few extra minutes, but keep an eye on it!)
- Let cool completely. Slice and enjoy!
