Zucchini Bread for CSID-ers

DISCLAIMER: This recipe is intended to be a starch-free/sucrose-free recipe.
This syrup is NOT low calorie or sugar-free.
Please use caution when adding a new food to a special or restricted diet—
—What works for my family may not work for yours.

There's not really much to say about this recipe. I wanted to make a version of zucchini bread that my CSIDers could have because there was a lot of zucchini and I really like zucchini bread. I started with my recipe for "normal" zucchini bread and proceeded to modify it as I saw fit in order to come up with this recipe.

Once comment on the nature of quick breads like zucchini bread and banana bread and the like—these are not really what I would consider bread. I have often fallen prey to the though process that banana bread is bread and that makes it good for breakfast, but it's time to start being honest with ourselves. Zucchini bread is really just cake. There is a much lower ratio of sugar & fat to flour than regular birthday cake, but quick breads often fall closer to cake than bread in the baked goods family tree.

This is not to say that I think you shouldn't eat banana bread or zucchini bread or those deliciously huge muffins you bought from the club store for breakfast. I am just saying that we need to be a little more honest in realizing that they really aren't that good for you. But hey, at least with zucchini bread you are getting some vegetables, right?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the recipe. My oldest would probably eat it all day long, and his little brother really really wants to like it, and always asks for it, but never seems to be able to get that into it. Oh well. Have fun baking!

—Sam

Skip the tutorial and go straight to the recipe.

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Step 0:

Preheat the oven to 350°F, and make sure one of your racks is set to the middle position in your oven.
You should also grease an 8" loaf pan liberally with cooking spray or shortening. This bread has a tendency to want to stick, even to nonstick pans, so don't skip this step.

Step 1:

I am taking for granted that you have already shredded your zucchini to get the amount that will be called for in the recipe. Oh who am I kidding...
Shred enough zucchini on the large holes of your favorite grater so that you have 2 cups shredded zucchini.
Next you need to take that shredded zucchini and squeeze as much water out as possible, but make sure to do this over a bowl so that you can reserve 1/4 cup of the squeezed-out liquid as we will be adding some back later on. Dump the zucchini into a collander/strainer and set aside.
Why in the world would I have you squeeze out the liquid from the zucchini only to add it back later in the recipe? Well, to be honest, I find a lot of zucchini bread recipes to be overly wet and heavy. Some of that comes from the fact that zucchini is 95% water, so adding zucchini is like adding water, and you can't add too much water to a recipe without having it take forever to bake. To get around this a lot of recipes really skimp on the amount of zucchini they put in the bread, and I just don't feel good about calling something zucchini bread when there isn't a lot of zucchini in it. So, squeeze away.

Step 2:

To the reserved zucchini juice add 7 large eggs, 1/2 cup dextrose, 2 Tbsp vegetable oil, and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Use a whisk or similar device to thoroughly combine and slightly aerate. You are looking for fluffy looking eggs here, people. Get those whiskers whisking!
I know what some of you are thinking, and yes this is a lot of eggs. But there is a reason and it comes down to coconut flour. You see, coconut flour is great for low-carb baking because it is almost all fiber. The problem is that coconut flour is almost all fiber, and fiber really drinks up water, and a little bit goes a long way. If I were to keep the amount of eggs to an amount similar to that used in a traditional zucchini bread recipe, I would only use a very small amount of coconut flour to create a workable batter. The flipside is that there would not be enough batter to make the recipe worth it. Because we want to have lots of batter, we will need more coconut flour, which in turns means that we will need a lot more liquid. Yes we could use water or milk, but those don't contribute much other than moisture. With eggs, on the other hand, we get emulsifiers from the yolks along with a lot of protein, which will help create more structure in the finished bread.

Step 3:

In another (large) bowl stir together 1/2 cup coconut flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, 3/4 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp salt.
At this point you are looking to homogenize the dry ingredients, which will make blending them into the dry ingredients easier by reducing the amount/size of potential lumps. Do you have to do this? Well, no, but the only reason I could see for skipping this step is avoiding another mildly dirty bowl.

Step 4:

Pour the combined wet ingredients on top of the dry ingredients and use a whisk to bring the two together. There is no gluten in this dough, so you don't have to worry about overmixing making the bread tough.

Step 5:

Pour the batter into your prepared pan. Smooth the top of the loaf if you want, and slide into the preheated oven. Bake for 50 minutes.
If you are interested, there is a way to make your loaf prettier by controlling where the top crust of the bread will split. Before baking, spray a spatula or bench scraper with cooking spray and plunge it vertically in the middle of the batter, the entire length of the pan, regreasing as necessary. When the bread bakes, it should split pefrectly along that oiled line. I don't know why this works, but it does.

Step 6:

This step is important!!
When the bread comes out of the oven, allow it to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before depanning onto a wire rack. Let the bread cool to room temperature before slicing. I know it takes patience, but your patience will be rewarded with a better texture to your bread. If you need your bread hot then either toast it briefly or use the wonderful invention, the microwave.

Coconut Flour Zucchini "Bread"—Yields: 1 8"-loaf

Volume Weight

Wet Ingredients
Dry Ingredients

Wet Ingredients	Dry Ingredients

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Liberally grease the inside of an 8" loaf pan.
2. Shred enough zucchini to produce 2 cups. Squeeze the as much liquid as possible out of the zucchini, making sure to reserve 1/4 cup of the liquid. Set the zucchini aside for later.
3. To the reserved liquid add the eggs, dextrose, oil, and vanila. Whisk until combined and slightly fluffy.
4. Blend together the dry ingredients before adding on top of the wet ingredients and whisking together.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes.
6. Allow the bread to cool for 5 minutes in the pan before depanning to a wire rack to cool to room temperature before slicing.

This recipe was printed from Dinner in the Life of a Dad (samslaugh.blogspot.com)

Coconut Flour Zucchini Bread 1 8" Loaf A sweet coconut flour based zucchini bread recipe. 1 cup shredded Zucchini 1/4 cup Zucchini Water 7 Large Eggs 1/2 cup Dextrose 1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract 1/2 cup Coconut Flour 1/2 cup Almond Flour 3/4 tsp Baking Soda 3/4 tsp Baking Powder 1 Tbsp Cinnamon 1/2 tsp Salt