Moist, tender whole grain zucchini bread with warm autumn spices, a beautiful crumb, studded with both fresh and dried cherries, chocolate chips and chopped walnuts. It’s a zucchini bread the whole family will love!
The list of ingredients for this bread is long, but please don’t let that deter you … it’s quite simple to make! It’s a close cousin to my chocolate cherry zucchini bread. A dump, stir and bake kind of recipe. So trust me, it’s easy. And I promise you will be richly rewarded with a flavorful, tender, super yummy quick bread. Since it’s full of whole grains, you’ll feel good about feeding it to your family, too.
I made this zucchini bread a couple months ago now, for a folk music festival we were going to. It’s the kind of festival where you are so busy watching the music and dancing, you never have time to think about food. So you have to have some food prepped ahead of time. I had loads of zucchini at the time, so zucchini bread sounded like just the thing to bring.
My mom and dad and my niece were all planning to meet up at this festival of music. Plus two of my best friends and their families. But then my niece got sick and couldn’t make it. I was so disappointed that she not only missed the music, she missed out on all the good food I had planned for her! Oh well, everyone else loved the zucchini bread.
The harvest here is starting to wind down now, but I’m hoping many of you still have zucchini in plenty.
My zucchini plant did not do so well this year. I planted it outside of my garden in our catio. I thought this would be a great spot where the deer could not trouble it. And I hoped that our kitties would love to hide under the big leaves. The plant started out okay, but then got sick. And only produced 5 zucchini total.
Unfortunately, the kitties didn’t seem to like the zucchini plant either. So my plan didn’t really work out as well as I thought. But hey, that’s what gardening is about, right? Trying different things and seeing how it goes.
Luckily, my parents had plenty of zucchini to share with me. So I could make some delightful zucchini bread to share with my friends and family. Just look at that yumminess! Makes me want to make it all over again.
Cherry Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 min
- Yield: 12 slices 1x
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
Wet ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
- 1/2 cup milk
- 3/4 – 1 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 Tablespoon brandy (optional)
- 2 1/2 cups finely chopped or shredded zucchini
Dry ingredients:
- 3 cups whole wheat flour or 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour + 1/2 cup oat bran
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- A pinch of cardamom
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
Mix-ins:
- 1/2 cup fresh or frozen cherries, pitted and chopped
- 1/2 cup dried cherries (or craisins)
- 1 cup chocolate chips (or 1/2 cup white/1/2 cup dark chocolate chips)
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. and spray a 9×5 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients, then stir in the dry ingredients just until fully mixed. Fold in the mix-ins, saving some nuts for the top.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with the reserved nuts and a bit of coarse (turbinado) sugar, if desired. Bake at 350 F. for 50 – 60 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool at least 10 minutes before slicing.
Notes
RECIPE SOURCE: Sumptuous Spoonfuls – https://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/ … © Copyright 2022, Sumptuous Spoonfuls. All images & content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to publish any of my images, please ask first. If you want to republish this recipe as your own, please re-write the recipe in your own words or link back to this post for the recipe.
Keywords: Cherry, Zucchini, Chocolate Chip, Bread, Whole Grain
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