A great way to welcome the Fall season is by filling your house with the smells of cinnamon and vanilla. Fall is my favorite season for a myriad of reasons. Fall brings in some amazing sleeping weather with it's cooler temperatures, most hunting seasons are in full swing, Halloween is just around the corner for the kiddo's, and your garden should be giving up the last produce of your summer growing season.
I'm the cook in my house, which means I get to dictate the menu and let me tell you Fall brings in a whole new menu. When the long sleeve shirts and hooded sweatshirts start to come out my food cravings change as well. Fall in my house is the season of soups, stews, and roasts. It's also the time of year where I start baking and make my oven pull double duty as a glade plug-in. A couple staples in my household during Fall are hot apple cider and bourbon and zucchini bread and butter. Zucchini bread with butter is a fantastic simple breakfast that you can eat on your drive to your hunting spot and it goes well with a hot cup of coffee.
This recipe is incredibly simple and a fun one to have the little ones help with since they get to use their hands. This recipe always gets an excited "YES" when I ask my daughter if she would like to help make some zucchini bread. This recipe was handed down to me by my mother and I'm handing it off to you. Depending on your bread pan size this yields 3 to 4 loaves of bread.
Ingredients
4 Cups of Flour
4 Cups of Sugar
4 Eggs
2 Tsp of Vanilla
2 Cups of Vegetable Oil
4 Cups of Grated Zucchini
2 Tbsp of Cinnamon
4 Tsp Baking Soda
2 Tsp Salt
1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
(Optional) 1 Cup Chopped Nuts
Instructions
Combine all your ingredients into a mixing bowl. (This doesn't look pleasant but it will taste amazing.)
Mix well making sure none of your powders are clumping and the eggs are beaten.
3. Grease your bread pans with Crisco and dust with a light coating of flour so the bread doesn't stick to the pan or burn. (This is my daughters favorite step since it involves making a mess and using her hands.)
4. Pour the mixture into each pan leaving about an inch of space at the top. (My pans 8in x 4in and I can make three loaves at a time.)
5. Bake @ 350 for 1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes depending on your oven. (Allow the tooth pick test to tell you when it's done.)
6. Place on a cooling rack or anything that will allow air to circulate around the entire pan. If you place it on a flat surface without allowing air access to the bottom of the pan you're going to have to use a butter knife to unseat the bread from the pan.
You may have noticed that I made three loaves but only took a picture of two. That's because as usual one loaf was eaten immediately and didn't survive long enough to have it's picture taken. The Sugar, Vanilla, and Cinnamon can all be adjusted to your families taste. This is a wonderful recipe and I hope you give it a try. Let me know how your bread turned out.