Chocolate zucchini bread

Over the holidays, my mom and I made Flour’s double chocolate cookies – yum!  What does that have to do with zucchini bread, you may ask?

Well, those cookies made me hungry for more chocolate, so when we made zucchini bread a few days later, I decided to throw in some bittersweet chocolate chunks.

Not bad, but I knew I could make it more chocolaty better in three simple steps.

Step 1: Sub out some of the flour and replace with cocoa powder.
Step 2: Eliminate cinnamon to better focus on chocolate.
Step 3: Add even more chocolate!

The Flour recipe introduced me to the idea of using finely shaved unsweetened chocolate in addition to chocolate chunks – it melts in and makes the cookies darker and more complex.

So I threw in a couple ounces of unsweetened chocolate, along with plenty of chopped 70% chocolate.  This bread isn’t too sweet, so it’s not quite a cake, but the chocolate definitely makes its presence known!

Chocolate zucchini bread

3 eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups grated and drained zucchini (just under 1 lb)
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 oz finely chopped unsweetened chocolate
3 oz roughly chopped bittersweet chocolate (70%)

Preheat oven to 375º and butter a loaf pan.

Beat eggs in a large bowl and mix in oil, sugar, vanilla, and zucchini.  Add dry ingredients, mix, then add chopped chocolate.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cool in pan on wire rack for at least 10 minutes.