Chocolate Zucchini Bread with Maple Syrup
I needed another way to use up some of the zucchini that is overflowing in my refrigerator and luckily I came across this chocolate zucchini bread recipe from one of my favorite food blogs - Love & Lemons. To my pleasant surprise, Love & Lemons’ recipe already used a natural sweetener - maple syrup - so there wasn’t very much I had to do to adapt this recipe. I did make one small change and swap out the cinnamon and nutmeg for ground coffee powder because I love the combination of coffee and chocolate, even if it is very subtle.
Enjoy!
Makes 2 8x4 loaves or about 10-12 mini loaves
Ingredients
210 g (1 and 3/4 cups) all-purpose flour
90 g (3/4 cup) whole wheat flour
35 g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground coffee
3 eggs
350 g (1 and 1/2 cups) milk, room temperature
60 g (1/4 cup) coconut oil, melted
210 g (2/3 cup) maple syrup
2 tsp. vanilla extract
285 g (2 cups) shredded zucchini
6 oz (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease your loaf pans.
In a small bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour to coffee).
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Add the zucchini and stir and then add the dry ingredients and stir until just combined (try to avoid overmixing). Last but not least, stir in the chocolate chips.
Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pans, sprinkle with more chocolate chips, and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you are using 8x4 loaf pans, this will take about 50-60 minutes; for the smaller loaf pans, it will take around 25-30 minutes.
