%20from%20Running%20to%20the%20Kitchen. "Pin It")
Hypocritical: Making this bread the other day and then eating pasta for lunch. And that’s why I don’t do diets. It was Barilla protein plus pasta though at least.
Pretty much everyone makes zucchini bread around this time of year. They run the gamut from super savory to sickly sweet as people try to justify it as healthy because it’s got vegetables in it. Yeah, that cup of sugar is totally balanced out by the grated zucchini, keep telling yourself that.
I actually think the coolest thing about the paleo diet is playing around with baked goods. It’s a challenge and when I can win them, I like challenges. When I fail and I can only push press 65 pounds while everyone around me is doing at least 25 pounds more than that, I get frustrated and want to throw things. Luckily, the weights in crossfit are rubber and the bread turned out awesome so no knives were flying around the kitchen.
I got lazy making my almond flour and definitely didn’t grind it as fine as I should’ve. It resulted in the best texture though, think somewhere between chopped nuts and sifted flour. Crunchy, but not too much that it doesn’t feel like bread. Contrasted with the moistness from the zucchini…perfection. I’m totally amazed at how paleo breads even work. Like how do ground up almonds actually rise in the oven? I know that baking soda has something to do with it (obviously), but it just seems like a hell of a lot of work for the poor baking soda compared to traditional flours. You know?
I guess I don’t really care though as long as this is the result.
ps- spread some of this on a slice of this bread and omg, it’s like an explosion of nutty goodness.
- 1½ cups almond flour
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup grated zucchini, water squeezed out
- 3 eggs
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 banana, mashed
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two mini bread loaf pans.
- Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
- Combine wet ingredients besides zucchini in a stand mixer and beat on medium for about 2 minutes. Alternatively, combine in a large bowl and whisk together vigorously.
- Add zucchini and mix until combined.
- Pour dry ingredients into wet and mix until incorporated.
- Pour batter into loaf pans.
- Bake for 32-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes.
- Transfer bread out of loaf pan and cool on wire rack.
{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
What a great bread recipe! I think I’ll whip it up before I go to work today! Have a great weekend!!
Yet another zucchini recipe I’m collecting. Tomorrow I load up at the farmers market!
I have four mushy bananas just begging to be made into a bread. I think this is going to be the bread!
This looks like it has a really great texture, I love using magical ground almonds in baked goods.
I’m with you. I love a lot of the paleo recipes but I could never give up grains completely. I did the same thing the other day. I ate paleo pancakes, a huge salad for lunch and a big old bowl of pesto pasta for dinner
Balance right?
funny you posted this – I was just reading your banana paleo bread the other day when i clicked over from your sidebar and now this one – makes me wanna bake some bread! Hope you’re having a blast at BlogHer!
ah yes crossfit can be frustrating at times… there will ALWAYS be someone (or lots of people) better, but I try to focus on myself and the progress I’ve made. And paleo bread confuses me too, which is why I usually don’t even bother! Good job cracking the code though, it can be tricky.
my sister will flip over this! she’s celiac and dairy-intolerant so she basically HAS to eat paleo, but does it because she loves it. i know she misses baked goods though…this will be perfect for her!
Almonds and zucchini…who would have thought they would make such a great combination? And I totally agree…how the heck do almonds rise in the oven?? I guess I’ll have to find out
You basically read my mind by creating this recipe! I was *just* looking for a low-sugar grain-free banana/zucchini bread. Bookmarked, planning to make next week
[also, what plugin do you use for the "pin it" button inside your posts?]
It’s not a plugin in actually. I used to use the “pin it on pinterest” plug in but it severly impacted my site’s load time so I deleted it. If you go to pinterest, under the about button is the “pin it button”. Scroll down and you’ll see 3 fields to enter the url of the picture you want the button under, the url of the post it’s on and a description. You type that all in and it gives you html code. Copy & paste into your blog and the button shows up. So I do it manually for each post. I think if you want it under a specific picture thats how you have to do it, all the plugin ones only show up on the top or bottom of the entire post.
That texture does look awesome!!! Haha, make the baking soda work out as hard as you do!
I love cooking with almond flour. This looks so good and made with all healthy ingredients. I’m pinning this right now! Have a great weekend!
I love cooking with flavorful almond flour. Really a great combo Gina! Love to try this one, as always.
Thanks by the way for joining the YUMGOGGLE gallery. We appreciate you sharing your wonderful pictures. Thanks for making our gallery more unique and exciting…Keep in touch!
Mmmm, this looks great. I’ve been out of almond flour for way too long. It’ll be the first thing I grab next time I’m at Trader Joe’s.
i love how dense yet incredibly moist this looks!
xo
http://allykayler.blogspot.ca/
This looks so tasty, the texture looks incredible. They look like decent sized slices too – I hate just getting a sliver of cake!
Great recipe. I’m always on the lookout for paleo “bread” recipes as they’re a great way to get people into Paleo
I have to tell you that your bread is in the oven right now! I love that there is no sugar, just maple syrup! You got that right when you said people who think it’s healthy when you add a cup of sugar! Who needs all that sugar? Can’t wait to try your bread out!
I hope you liked it! I wish I had more on hand, it makes a great afternoon snack
this looks DELCIOUS! so glad i have almond meal in my pantry right now
Wow! Love this recipe and your blog…you crack me up with your sarcasm and funny sayings. Anyway, I just made this bread and it didn’t turn out well. I added another banana for sweetness, omitted the maple sugar and used a chia egg in place of the regular egg. Baked for 35 minutes. got all poofy in the oven and then deflated as soon as they came out. Seem undercooked and gooey. Will have to scoop them into a bowl and eat that way.
Any ideas on what went wrong?
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Christine-thanks for the kind words. To be honest and forward though, yes, I do know what went wrong…you didn’t follow the recipe. There are 3 eggs in it and I’m not sure a chia egg is a great substitution. Paleo baking is hard enough as is, if you mess with the ingredients I can’t promise what it’s going to turn out like. I can assure you if you follow this recipe (that I’ve made 3 times now) you’ll get a very moist, dense and hearty bread. Also, make sure you bake it in mini loaf pans to help avoid the deflation thing. Mine deflated slightly when I pulled it out but it didn’t affect the texture of the bread. If it’s too undercooked/gooey, leave it in a few more minutes as all ovens are different. Although, the substitutions you made could also be contributing to that.
Gina,
I added the chia for it’s nutritional value and I added some ground flax as well.
Thanks for the quick reply. Yeah, Iam sure the omitting of the eggs had a lot to do with it…I plan to make this again soon and will follow the recipe exactly!!
After they cooled and were refrigerated, they firmed up quite a bit, not enough to cut into slices though. I plan on eating this in a bowl with blueberries and some non dairy milk for breakfast. I love the taste and texture of this recipe. Also, I did use mini muffin pans and will use them again as mentioned.
Again, thank you for the response and I look forward everyday to see what you post
Christine
Hi all, first off this is a wonderful bread! I modified it a bit to my likings by adding about 2 tsp of pumpkin spice (my favorite part about the flavor of zucchini bread) and 2 tsp of cinnamon- let me just tell you, I’m so glad I did this as the flavors came out absolutely delicious. I also added 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts, 1/2 tbsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 large grated carrot, and an extra tbsp of maple syrup; I also folded in my egg whites (which gave great rise to the bread). The only thing I plan to do different next time is either use less salt or just add 1 tsp of baking soda (it was a little more salty than I would’ve liked it to have been even though I put in extra maple syrup, it also browned pretty dark on top) so I’m going bake it at 315 for 45-50 minutes as it was super moist in the middle of the bread, almost wet (a quality some people absolutely adore in sweet breads but I prefer mine to be as close to traditional bread as possible).
Anyhow, such delicious flavors… I can’t wait to share this with my friends at church tomorrow. Yum!
Thank you so much for this recipe!
I’d love to hear if the lower baking temp reduces the browning for you. Every time I bake with almond flour it turns very brown so I was thinking it was just how the flour bakes rather than the temp, but if you get a lighter result, let me know! Glad you liked it and love all your substitutions!
This by far was the best Zucchini bread I’ve made yet! So good in fact I’ve got three in the oven to share with my family members! Awesome taste and CONSISTENCY! I substituted the maple syrup for Stevia. Thanks for sharing!
So great to hear! Enjoy
Would using raw honey instead of maple syrup work with this recipe? I have a giant container of honey that I need to use!
I’m sure it would. They’re usually interchangeable but I haven’t tried it so I can’t tell you for sure. It’s such a limited amount, I’m sure it would be fine.
The bread ended up tasting great but being way too moist. Any advice? Maybe I didn’t dry out my zucchini enough??
Probably need to squeeze the zucchini dry a bit more but it is a very moist bread.
I just tried this recipe, and the flavor is absolutely delicious; the perfect cross between savory and sweet. However, I had the same problem as Meagan. My bread came out way too moist; I drained my zucchini really well, first pressing it between 2 cutting boards with paper towels, then squeezing it again with more paper towel before I added it in. I also baked it for about 45 minutes instead of the 32-35. This is a problem I have frequently with paleo baked goods (the muffins I made yesterday did the same thing). Any words of wisdom? I would just bake it for longer, but then the top gets too dark/dry.
I have discovered that with many of my almond flour/paleo recipes, they come out too moist (seemingly under baked) UNLESS I separate the eggs, whip the whites into STIFF peaks, then fold the whites into the batter. In doing this I’ve virtually eliminated this issue and my baked paleo goods rise and don’t fall back in. I made this in an 8.5″ loaf pan and it rose and didn’t fall back in. I also spread my shredded zucchini on un-papertowels, sprinkle with a wee bit of salt, and let them wet in a warm oven for a bit before I wring them out. This ensures that you get out as much of the liquid as possible. I hope this is helpful! This recipe turned out BEAUTIFULLY….both in the texture and flavor!
I can’t wait to try this recipe, as I am on a strict paleo diet for two months! Oy. I’m not allowed to have any form of sweetner-except for stevia-which I do not like. Any recommendations for alterntaive ways to sweeten the bread without changing the consistency? (I was thinking of using dates). Thanks!
Can you please tell me how many calories is in this loaf? I just ate half in one sitting! Deliscious! Thank you.
I bought a bag of hazelnut flour. Can I substitute the almond flour for hazelnut. If so do i use the same amount.?. thank you. I did make make the almond zucchini bread a few weeks ago.. It was great. Sandy
I’ve never used hazelnut flour, so I don’t know on the amounts but I’d imagine it would work pretty close to the same.
Munching on these right now! I agree that this bread has a moist texture, but not unpleasantly so. I baked these as 12 muffins, for 25 minutes, and drizzled them with agave syrup before eating because I have a sweet tooth. Really pleased with how this recipe turned out, and I’m excited to experiment with it (I think it would be great with semisweet choc chips). Thanks for sharing!
Love this recipe! I did make some modifications due to some of the reviews and the fact that I only have ONE mini bread pan. I decided to make muffins in silicone muffin cups. The slight adaptions I made to the recipe are: adding 1.5 teaspoons of apple pie spice in addition to the 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. I also added 1.5 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 1/4 cup of mini dairy free chocolate chips. I took handfuls of the shredded zucchini and squeezed each handful very well. The recipe made exactly 12 perfect muffins which baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Thank you for sharing!
Great recipe– am always on lookout for truly low-sugar baked goods recipes for my young children–and gluten free so I can enjoy!
Per previous comments, I also added shredded carrot, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice and halved the salt. I used mini bundt molds since I didn’t have mini loaf pans. Smashing success… super delicious, just sweet enough, perfect moist texture, quite reminiscent of banana bread. Thanks so much!
Hi
I’m from the UK, and zucchini bread isn’t so popular here as in the US. This last week I’ve been attempting to follow the Paleo diet, but I find it hard. I do not like eatiing so much meat and fish. I’ve longed for a simple salad with a couple of slices of good bread, but grains do not appear to suit me hence trying out the Paleo diet. Is the zucchini bread savoury or sweet? And what are the measurements of the mini loaf tins?
Many thanks.
Hi B Mitchell,
This bread is definitely more along the lines of a sweet bread, it’s very moist and is more of a treat for those who follow the paleo diet. However, you could probably make it a less-sweet bread by omitting the maple syrup and possibly subbing the banana for something else like more eggs but I’ve never experimented with that. Here’s a link to a site that offers various paleo bread recipes using almond flour and coconut flour that you might like. This version of the zucchini bread was awesome for me so I like this recipe but elena has very good breads too. Hope this helps
http://www.elanaspantry.com/gluten-free-bread-20/
i have been following your paleo experience and im intrigued by your creativity and persuasion
I have been trying to help my husband, who knows nothing about nutrition, to lose weight. I’m trying to explain to him the idea of the paleo way of eating. I stumbled across your blog a few days ago as a result. It’s SO awesome, the recipes look great and I’m happy I’ve found it. The only thing is – it’s really hard to see the size of the loaves. I’m not a great cook but it seems to me a mini loaf tin could be many different sizes. Could you put the size of the tin in please? I find that recipes are often vague – like when it says ’1 mashed banana’ – is that a big banana, little banana, medium banana. It would be helpful to have an idea of how much recipe writers mean when they say a certain amount of a vegetable or fruit.
Anyway.. I don’t mean to be too critical, your recipes look awesome and it was just this little thing that bothered me
Robyn xx
ps: going to attempt to make your paleo choc chip cookies now
Does this recipe work with Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour? Just curious because there is another blog I follow with Almond Flour Recipes and she says Bob’s Red Mill Almond flour is too course. Thanks for the Recipe! I used Agave Nectar instead of Syrup and added 1 teaspoon vanilla…Delicious!!
This was so good. We left out the banana and put in 1/4 cup maple. The sweetness was subtle, but oh so good. Thanks for the great recipe!
I don’t normally post when I try a recipe, but Dear Lord woman this recipe is the BOMB! I’ve had disaster after somewhat edible disaster with grain free breads, but I’m pretty sure that I’d eat this entire thing just to make another one so I can eat that. I only made a few tweaks- subbed in 1/4 cup coconut flour instead of all the almond flour (almond flour is expensive and i’m cheap) added cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, and a tiny bit of raw maple sugar. I used silicone cups to make muffins because I don’t have mini loaf pans- cooked on 350 for about 30 mins. Oh and I sprinkled slivered almonds on the top for more of a crunch. Not to mention that I literally wrapped the zucchini between paper towels and stood on it to squeeze out the water.
Even my husband was like these are delicious. Well done sir, well done.
I made these for my son who has fructose malabsorption. I skipped the maple syrup all together since it doesn’t work for his diet. I made muffins and they were great. I froze some too & they thawed well for later. Great way to use up excess zuchinis & old bananas
They got the two miniature thumbs up from my 2 yr old. Mine weren’t overly moist, maybe the smaller muffin size, or the lack of syrup? Perfect muffins, especially since we haven’t found another recipe that fits his needs. Thank you!
This came out of the oven about three minutes ago, and made it into our mouths about fifteen seconds after that. Pretty damn good! We subbed honey for maple syrup since we’re out of the latter, and I doubled the recipe to sneak some Enjoy Life chocolate chips and pecans into the grown-up recipe – the two year old gets the chocolate-free version. Pretty good Mother’s Day treat! Thank you!
{ 12 trackbacks }