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My mom is a fantastic baker and is very generous when it comes to giving it away to others. She is always whipping up some homemade fruit pies, cookies at Christmas time, and all different kinds of fruit loaves and muffins. The one thing she doesn’t make is cake…and that’s a whole other story all together. I’ve been craving her lemon bread recipe recently and was surprised when I realized I’ve never made lemon bread even though it’s my all-time favorite bread recipe of hers. I went through all of my recipes and couldn’t find the one that she uses so I took to the interweb and heavily adapted one from www.lilluna.com.
For anyone who knows me knows that I can’t just let a recipe be. I always have to adapt it, make substitutions and swap out ingredients. Sometimes it’s because I’m missing some ingredients, sometimes it’s because I want to make a healthier substitution and sometimes it’s just because I want to put my own twist on it. This particular recipe has all of these reasons. I subbed out half of the flour for homemade oat flour. I used half and half ratio of butter and coconut oil for the fat content. I added vanilla because it’s an absolute must for me when baking. I didn’t have buttermilk so I used Greek yogurt instead. With all of these substitutions it still satisfied my craving for my mom’s lemon bread and I happily gave away a few loaves knowing that if left alone I could have devoured the whole recipe. Sorry hubby, I guess a little less than half for you.
Lemon Zucchini Bread
Yields 3 mini loaves and one standard loaf
2 cups homemade oat flour (Place whole oats into a food processor and wiz away. Measure the flour after being in the food processor.)
2 cups cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 eggs
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup virgin coconut oil
1 cup coconut sugar
1 2/3 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
Juice and zest of 3 lemons
2 cups grated zucchini
Lemon glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
Juice and zest of 2 lemons
Preheat your oven to 350C. In a medium bowl mix the dry ingredients and set aside. In a separate bowl beat the eggs, then add the butter, coconut oil, sugars and vanilla and mix well. Add the Greek yogurt, lemon juice and zest and mix well. Fold in the zucchini then slowly add the dry ingredients mixing until just incorporated. Grease your pans and fill 2/3 the way with batter. You can use either a rectangle cake pan, 2 standard loaf pans or 6 mini loaf pans, or any combination. I made 1 standard loaf and 3 mini loaves. Bake the standard loaf for about 45-50 minutes and the mini loaves for about 35-40 minutes depending on your oven. Check with a toothpick, if it comes out clean the loaves are done. If batter sticks to it then bake for a little while longer. Let cool to the touch then place on a wire rack over wax paper or tin foil.
To make the glaze mix the sugar and lemon juice and zest until there aren’t any lumps. Using a skewer poke holes in the loaves while still warm and spoon the glaze over the loaves.
This lemon bread is super moist and tangy from the zucchini and lemon. You can’t even taste the zucchini so it’s a great recipe for picky vegetable eaters. It is sweet enough to be used as a cake and I highly recommend the corner pieces that get slightly crunchy. The oat flour adds a really interesting texture that gives it a bit of bite and you can rest assured knowing that it’s *kind of* good for you. Or at least that’s what I tell myself while I inhale it in the kitchen.
Enjoy!