Chocolate Zucchini Bread

This weekend, Tom and I are attending a family reunion for his mom's side of the family. I decided that I would try a new recipe for our contribution to the family food. Last week I saw a $12 loaf of chocolate zucchini bread at Sunterra, and I figured it couldn't be that difficult (or expensive) to make at home.

Recently, I have come to love the addition of zucchini in baking. Zucchini doesn't have a particularly strong taste, but it adds moisture and texture-- not to mention a serving of vegetables, to baking.

Grated zucchini.

My chocolate zucchini bread was from a much recommended recipe on Allreipes.com. It was a very basic, with simple instructions and common ingredients. The first step was to melt 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate. Don't be tempted to sample the chocolate! It looks so delicious and melty... But the chocolate it is so very, very bitter. You will not be satisfied. Not that I know from experience or anything. Whatever.

Ooey gooey melted chocolate.

The next step was to measure the dry ingredients. Last week, Tom tried to "help" me make cupcakes, but it ended up stressing me out, because he was randomly throwing ingredients into the bowl without measuring them properly! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME, TOM!? This week I measured on my own.

Dry ingredients.

Then I mixed everything together. And at this point, even the batter began to smell delicious.

Mixing the zucchini into the batter.

I didn't bother to half the recipe, and the original recipe resulted in two loaves.

Loaf pans loaded with batter.

Soon I was spying on the loaves rising while they baked for an hour in the oven.

Rising loaves.

If only you could smell our kitchen right now. It couldn't be more obvious that we've just taken fresh chocolate baking out of the oven.

Finished loaves cooling on the stove.

I am sad to report that I didn't grease the pans enough, and one of the loaves tore while I was taking it out of the pan. So disappointed! But Tom sampled some of the crumbs, and said that they were tasty. Hopefully both loaves end up making it to the reunion. 

They're just so... Tempting...