Blackberry Lemon Zucchini Bread

July 19, 2018

The monster of the growing season. Zucchini. It doesn't take long until you run out of ideas on how to use it up. I still can't believe how many zucchini my garden is spitting out! I wanted to try a new baked good today. I saw that I had blackberries that we had picked and froze so I figured I would use those up too.

I pulled the bread out of the oven and my daughter said it looked cool, like something you would get at Panera Bread. I'll take that compliment! I was a little surprised to see my daughter go back for a second slice. She claims she doesn't like blackberries. Ha! Then an hour later after seeing her dad try the bread she said "oh yeah, I forgot there was zucchini in there".

I read a tip today. You can peel the zucchini so your kids won't see the green flecks in the bread. My kids know there is zucchini in whatever I was making today but I did peel maybe half of it to try out the tip and see how it looks. I froze the remaining shredded zucchini in one cup increments and I should be able to hide it in a few dishes seeing as there isn't much green.

Alright, on to the bread.

Blackberry Lemon Zucchini Bread:

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice
8 drops Lemon Vitality essential oil (Young Living)
1 cup grated zucchini
about 1 1/2 cups blackberries

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x5 bread pan. Add the lemon juice to the milk and set aside. You could use buttermilk instead but I never buy buttermilk and just do this substitution when I make breads like this. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, and lemon essential oil. Add milk and stir until combined. Stir in zucchini.

Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until almost combined, then add blackberries and carefully fold together until just combined. Pour into pan and bake until toothpick comes out clean. Start checking around 55 minutes. Mine took an hour and ten minutes.

I think we could make this recipe with just about any berry. I may try it next time with either blueberries or raspberries. Yum!

*I can only speak to the safety of ingesting essential oils from Young Living's Vitality line.

Lemon Zucchini Muffins

July 6, 2018

It's summer and my garden is starting to look green and full of life. I think we usually plant 1 or 2 zucchini plants. Welp. This year the store we were at only had them in four packs. Wouldn't ya know it all four plants look like they are going to be huge. We picked our first zucchini today and made some delicious muffins. If you are looking for something to make with all of your zucchini, look no further. Ha!

These muffins are my son's favorite. I used to add lemon baking chips to them and he would eat them as fast as I could make them. I can't find lemon chips locally anymore so last fall I made a slight change to the recipe. Instead of lemon baking chips, I would add Lemon essential oil (from Young Living's vitality line) and white chocolate chips. I didn't tell my son what I did different. He loved them! I asked what was his favorite part and his reply was "the lemon chips". Ha! I guess the recipe changes passed his inspection.

You can use this recipe for either zucchini bread or muffins.

3 eggs
1 cup oil
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 drops Lemon Vitality Essential Oil
3 cups flour
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate baking chips

Grease and flour the pans. Recipe makes two 8x4 loaves or 24 muffins.

Beat the eggs. Mix in oil and sugar, then add the zucchini, vanilla, and Lemon essential oil.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add this to the egg mixture. Stir in baking chips. Divide the batter into the pans. Bake loaves at 350 for 60 minutes (plus or minus 10 depending on your oven), or until toothpick comes out clean. Muffins bake for 23 minutes.