Double Chocolate Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

Hearty, healthy, moist, and fun! Chocolate meets green=beautiful. 

Recently my hubby and I celebrated our ten year anniversary. For a few of our meals, we decided to grocery shop at Sam's Club (I love Sam's Club) and buy a few things that we never buy. One of the things we bought were some of those jumbo muffins... you know, the huge cake-like muffins that apparently people eat for breakfast. (Yes, I know they are gross, ahh well, I admit, in the past I had kind of liked them. But hey...love makes you blind, right? Ok, fine it was just a dumb choice.) So for breakfast the next morning, I had a smoothie & a muffin. Just after I finished it, I looked at the nutrition label (no, I don't always want to know...) and I was completely SHOCKED and grossed out. One muffin contained 33grams of fat. THIRTY-THREE! That's like THREE snickers bars! (Yes, I just looked that up) I bake often and there are not many pre-packaged foods that we buy on a regular basis. I do sometimes buy yogurt and bagels, bread and tortillas. But, there is just NO way that the muffins or breads I make are anywhere near that bad for me. Even the richest of my chocolate cakes or desserts are NOT that high in fat! So, hey..does that make you feel better? 



So, the point of this entry....Since we have a nice supply of zucchinis in the garden, it is on my mind. Today I played with a recipe that reminded me much of the chocolate jumbo muffins that we got for our getaway...except delicious. 

Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

2 large eggs
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup canola oil or apple sauce
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 2/3 cups of whole wheat flour (I used soft-white wheat, which has a higher moisture content, great for quick breads)
1/2 cup flax seed, ground
2 cups unpeeled and shredded zucchini, about 2 small
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients to make a thick batter. If you are doing this by hand, mix the wet together first and then the dry. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 40-45ish minutes. Dark pans bake faster than light, so time appropriately. (I used my 12" bread pans which are dark and baked for about 40mins) Let cool in pan for a few minutes and then turn onto rack to thoroughly cool before cutting.

Enjoy! Seriously…except not for breakfast, unless it is your anniversary.