Month: February 2023

Yet another courgette (zucchini) recipe! Why, you ask? It’s too early for garden glut. I have signed up for a veg box delivery service to help us eat more vegetables in the winter. There’s a couple of purple cabbage recipes on the way as well. Guess what there’s a lot of in the veg box – oh yes, courgettes.

This is a quick bread recipe, so raised with baking powder and baking soda, not yeast. I used buttermilk (full fat obvs) for my recipe but any fermented milk product will probably do the trick; Greek yoghurt, creme fraiche, sour cream. There’s no butter or oil in the recipe so it does need the fat from the dairy products to achieve a good texture. Keep an eye on consistency, I found this batter relatively dry. If yours is too dry to spread in the pans, thin it out with milk.

You can also be flexible with the herbs: I used dried basil and dried chives because that’s what I had in the cupboard. You can also try some garlic or add in a handful of finely chopped spring onions.

One ‘must’ with this recipe – use small (1 pound) loaf pans and line them with parchment or purchased paper liners. Otherwise – a sticky mess and possibly new pans in your future. Also, try disposable miniature loaf pans for single portions, reduce the cooking time. My recipe made 3 modest small loaves, you could possibly cram the batter into 2 small pans.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

450 grams of courgettes (2 medium)

1 tsp sea salt

125 grams of plain white flour

125 grams of whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tablespoons dried chives

2 tablespoons dried basil

150 grams cheddar cheese

3 large eggs

170 grams buttermilk (3/4 cup)

Instructions

1. Grate the courgettes, add the teaspoon of sea salt, stir through, put in a colander in the sink and drain out the liquid. Leave for at least 30 minutes. When you’re ready to cook the recipe, put the courgettes in a clean tea towel and squeeze out the remaining liquid. Put to one side.
2. Preheat the over to 180C (350F). Needs a lower temperature and a longer cooking time to bake through.
3. Grate the cheese, put to one side.
4. In a large bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, remaining salt) until well combined.
5. Add the shredded courgettes to the dry ingredients, it should look like the individual shreds are coated with flour.
6. Add the basil and chives (and any other spices of your choice) and the grated cheddar, combine with your hands or a baking whisk.
7. Beat together the eggs and buttermilk, in a separate bowl.
8. Fold the buttermilk and eggs into the dry mixture. As with any quick bread – do not beat or overstir, just until its combined. Makes it tough.
9. Using your trigger scoop, fill your prepared pans about 2/3 to 3/4 full. If you’ve gone for fuller pans, line a baking sheet and put them on that. Unless you like cleaning your oven, you’ll be glad you did this.
10. Bake for an hour in the lower part of the oven, if using 1 pound loaf pans, 45 minutes if using smaller loaf casings. It seems like a along time, but it’s a thick batter and needs the time to cook through. If the tops look too brown, cover with a piece of foil but don’t undercook.
11. Cool completely before removing. Lovely with just butter. We also toasted and had with our boiled eggs in the morning.

Thank you for reading the blog and trying the recipes. Let me know how it went in the comments below or on social media @mamadolson on Twitter and Instagram.