Baking With Zucchini
We learned a lesson from zucchini over the years. We always grew 3-4 plants each year and you probably can guess the rest of the story. We ate zucchini. We cooked with zucchini. We froze zucchini. We gave away zucchini. We now grow 2 plants and that seems to plenty to fit our needs and we do not feel as if we are being wasteful.
We like baked goods with zucchini the most. Zucchini bread and other baked items are very easy to make. Grating the zucchini is a snap if you have a food processor with a grating feature. (It really saves the knuckles.) A hand grater works fine as well although the texture seems to be better with a food processor. I have used both. When I grate zucchini for recipes I usually grate several and then freeze it for later.
Zucchini adds moisture, nutrition, and texture to baking, It contains a lot of water. When you grate it water is released. Even when you freeze it more water is released. All this accumulation makes a big difference when using it in recipes.
There are important steps to take when using shredded zucchini.
- Handle and treat zucchini gently.
- Drain all water standing in the bottom of the bowl before adding to batter.
- Add zucchini at the end.
- Do not mix the batter longer than necessary.
These steps are good for bread, cakes, muffins, or cookies.
Frozen zucchini, when thawed, releases even more water than fresh. Let it thaw and drain well. Go a step further and put with several layers of paper towels.
So, the take away is remove as much moisture as possible and fold into any batter gently until combined. Do no over beat.
Check out this tasty zucchini bread recipe here!
