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.

These muffins are the first recipe I made with my King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook and they remain a favourite.  One of these muffins is the perfect breakfast for busy people.  The cookbook itself was a gift from my elder sister, Rachael.    It’s a gift that keeps giving and has given me and my family lots of joy.

This is a muffin recipe and it really is one of those that anyone can bake.  It’s full of fruit, vegetables and seeds as well as whole grains.  I’ve done the ingredients in metric (except for teaspoons and tablespoons). I have done the instructions in the order that I do them – not the order they are in the cookbook.

Ingredients

225 grams whole wheat flour

210 grams light or dark  brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

200 grams of carrots – grated

2 large tart apples – grated

85 grams  raisins

45 grams desiccated coconut

45 grams slivered almonds

60 grams sunflower seeds

3 eggs

130 mls corn oil

55 mls orange juice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 190C (or 170C fan).  Put paper liners in a 12 cup muffin tin.  Line a small (450 grams) loaf tin.  You might not need it, but I always do.  You’ll see why below.
2. Prep the dry ingredients.  Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt in a big bowl.
3. Prepare the carrots.  I don’t peel the carrots and I’m not precise about the amount.  I cut off the tops and bottoms, weight the carrots and err on the side of more carrots not less.   I use a small electric chopper (like this one from Amazon – I actually have 2).  The electric chopper is a great gadget and is priceless for people who use lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.  Chop the carrots small and throw them in a medium bowl.
4. Prepare the apples.  I use two big green Granny Smith apples.  I core them – like the carrots, I never peel them. Chop the apples into big chunks and then chop them small, like the carrots.  You don’t need to be too precise with the apples either and I always err on the side of more apples.   Put the apples in with the carrots.
5. Add the coconut, almonds, sunflower seeds and raisins to the bowl with the apples and carrots.  Stir it together and then add the contents to the dry ingredients.  Mix well using a big wooden spoon – DO NOT USE YOUR MIXER.
6. Beat the eggs in a separate medium bowl with a fork until they are well mixed.  Add the corn oil, orange juice and vanilla to the eggs.  Stir together and add it to the dry ingredients and the fruit vegetable and seed mixture.  Mix well with your wooden spoon!
7. Time to fill your muffin tins.  I use my trigger ice cream scoop (like this one on Amazon).  A generously filled scoop is perfect for a muffin cup.  Don’t overfill the muffin pan.  You may well have enough left over dough for a small loaf.
8. Bake the muffins for 23 to 25 minutes; the tops should look dry.  If you make a loaf as well, that needs to be baked for about 35 minutes at the same heat.
9. Take the muffins out of the oven, leave them in tin for about 5 minutes, then tip them out onto a cooling rack.   The muffins are sturdy; they travel well, they freeze well and kids love them.  The kids never notice the healthy bits.

Sturdy muffins that travel well.

It’s called  a quick bread because the leavening agent is baking power but it is genuinely quick to prepare,  to cook and to clean up.  And if your vegetable garden goes into courgette overdrive – you can use the courgettes and make the family happy at the same time.

Whole wheat courgette bread – zucchini for los Americanos.

Ingredients

Dry:

• 225 grams whole wheat flour
• 120 grams plain white flour or bread flour (NOT self raising)
• 150 grams caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Wet:

• 2 large eggs
• 170 mls milk
• 60 mls vegetable oil (corn or rapeseed, not olive oil)

Other:

• 350 grams grated courgette
• 85 grams raisins
• 60 grams chopped walnuts
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (see top tip below)

Instructions

Preheat your oven.  175C non-fan/160C fan.  Prepare a large loaf pan (900 gram/2 lb/23x13cms) or two small loaf pans (450gram/1lb/12×6).   Either grease with a hard fat (butter or lard) or line with paper.

Whisk together the dry ingredients (from whole wheat flour down to nutmeg) in a large bowl.  Make sure they are well mixed.

Prep the ‘other’ ingredients and put them in a bowl (don’t need to mix).

A top tip; you can buy lemon zest and keep it in the freezer or use Dr Oetker or another substitute.  Sometimes its just too much to have to have a lemon in the fridge to zest.   Another suggestion; if you do a lot of baking with nuts and vegetables, you might want to get a mini-chopper like this one.   No, I’m not sponsored by Amazon, it’s just where I do my appliance shopping.  I find it much easier to use and to clean up if I’m not working with big quantities.

Put all the ‘wet’ ingredients in a bowl or a big mixing jug and whisk to blend smoothly.  Pour the wet into the dry and mix well.  Then add the ‘other’ ingredients to the mixture and stir until incorporated.  Scoop the batter into the prepared pan and place in the oven.

Bake for an hour and then check the temperature (if more than 90C you’re done and out it comes).  If you don’t have a thermometer, if the top looks wet and wobbles, it’s not done.   It’s unlikely to be done after an hour – tent the top loosely with foil and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven when it’s done, cool in the pan for 15 minutes or so.  Then remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Top tips and gadgets

Loaf pan liners are very convenient and speed prep, cooking and clean up.  I use an ice cream scoop with a trigger to fill the pan.  The mini-chopper comes into its own for chopping nuts – buying pre-chopped nuts is expensive plus they get stale. But chopping your own by hand is too time consuming for me.   Prepared lemon zest is also a big time saver and means you can keep lemons in the ‘pantry’ (zest and bottled juice)  rather than needing fresh for baking.

Recipe count

47 quick bread recipes; 4 completed! OMG what was I thinking.

Can I cook my way through this book?

I have so many interests I’m not expecting to be bored in retirement.  But I’ve decided I need a quest.  Weed free flower beds – although laudable – are not quest worthy.  Neither is the perfectly organised linen closet . (Although also on my personal list of to dos).

My quest is to cook every recipe in my favourite baking cookbook ‘King Arthur Flour Whole Grain’.    I haven’t dared to count the recipes (yet) but it runs to 612 pages including the appendices .  It starts with granola and waffle recipe, runs the gamut of muffins, cakes, breads, scones, pies, rolls and quiches.  Any type of baked good you can imagine is in this book and made with whole grains.

My sister gave me this book several years ago and there are a number of family favourites already;  pumpkin bread, banana chocolate chip muffins, the best damn brownies ever and sunrise muffins.  TBH – I’ve never had an out and out fail using this book.   Some of the recipes require patience.  Not sure I will report every single recipe separately but I will keep a running tally.  And report back on the good, the bad and the ugly.

Cake or death!