Zucchini Bread from a prized Shenandoah Valley Mennonite cook

Zucchini Bread

Still drowning in zucchini? Either that you raised or given to you by a so-called friend? (I say so-called because of the old keep-your-car-locked-in-summer-at-church joke so no one gifts you with the zukes.)

I’m making some to give away: zucchini bread is one of my mother’s favorite breads with her huge breakfast of coffee and 1 roll or slice of bread. At 96, we don’t set the rules on what she should eat. I don’t raise zucchini because of—my opening sentence—we have plenty offered to us. I want to take Mom some the next time we visit. (One of my nieces has already promised zucchini bread and pickles for Christmas presents.)

I’m sharing this recipe because:

1) I have decided to go back to posting recipes aiming for every week or two. I’ve had an increasing realization that recipes are the bread and butter (so to speak) of my blog. That tells me that if I want the traffic to continue, I better pony up with regular recipe posts again;

2) recipes for this common snack bread aren’t found in a lot of my cookbooks, surprisingly enough;

3) while the bread has a long list of ingredients, you likely have everything in your cupboard;

4) someone gave me a box of 18 eggs and a zucchini, all in one week;  

5) I love writing recipe posts because they allow me to be breezy and not heavy and not preachy like I perhaps sometimes am in my columns.

And remember, if you don’t like pre-recipe stories and rationale for sharing, please roll right down to the recipe itself.

This recipe appears in the masterful collection, Mennonite Country-Style

Recipes and Kitchen Secrets: The Prized Collection of a Shenandoah Valley Cook, written a number of years ago now (1987) by Esther H. Shank from here in the Shenandoah Valley, for her daughters. She was sweet enough to endorse and write a blurb for my own book, Whatever Happened to Dinner.

Zucchini Bread (with an additional option of making cake)

2 cups grated raw zucchini
3 eggs, well beaten
2 cups sugar (I used one cup brown sugar instead of 2 white)
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup pecans (or divide ½ cup pecans and ½ cup optional raisins)

Directions:
Grate zucchini, set aside. Beat next five ingredients until fluffy. Sift together flour and next five dry ingredients. Add to wet ingredients and mix all together. Stir in grated zucchini plus nuts or raisins. Pour into 2 greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans, and bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes.

To make cake: fold in 1 cup undrained crushed pineapple along with nuts and raisins; bake in 9 x 13 inch cake pan for 35-40 minutes. –Marie Shank

To buy Esther’s cookbook, go here or your favorite bookstore.

To buy my cookbook and reflections on keeping family mealtime, go here or ask at your favorite bookstore.