Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

I planted, from seed, a zucchini plant this year. I am embarrassed to show you how spindly and bad it looks...


Note to self and all future zucchini growers: zucchini plants do not, repeat NOT, like being planted in a pot. Plant in rich, fertile soil in the GROUND. Ah well, it had some pretty flowers on it, yet no zucchini survived growing larger than 3 inches.

If you had more luck than me and have a bounty of zucchini's (lori), this bread would be a good way to use a couple. It was an easy recipe with most items on hand, and came out deliciously moist. However, don't make the mistake I did and think it's a zucchini bread with chocolate chips. This is basically a chocolate cake with zucchini (which you can barely see or taste). And it's yummy.

Can you see the tiny fleck of zucchini? (Ignore the weird sausage fingers)

I doubled the recipe, and it made 2 loaf pans and 12 muffins. I baked the muffins for approximately 30 minutes, but I recommend checking them after 20, to see if they are done.


Good weekend snack for the kids after going back to school and hitting those books! Or a fun treat to bring into the office. Delicioso.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
slightly adapted from Cooking Light

3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 cup applesauce
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups finely shredded zucchini, about 1 medium (I peeled mine before shredding, just cause)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate morsels, as it's what I had)
Cooking spray


Preheat oven to 350.

Place first 3 ingredients in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at low speed until well blended. Stir in applesauce.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups. Combine flour and the next 4 ingredients (through salt), stirring well with a whisk.

Add flour mixture to sugar mixture (slowly), beating just until moist and fully combined.

Stir in the zucchini and chocolate chips. Spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out almost clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack, and remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.


Check out these additional chocolate and zucchini recipes:
- Chocolate and Zucchini Cake, from Simply Recipes
- Chocolate Chip Orange Zucchini Bread, from All Recipes
- Chocolate Zucchini Brownies, from Suite101.com

Guten appetit!