Zucchini Bread

This past weekend I was doing a little spring cleaning and found stacks upon stacks of old food magazines.  That promptly ended said cleaning as I sat down with them piled around me.  I went through them all, ripping out the recipes I wanted to save so I could get rid of the magazines.  Today I did a little refrigerator cleaning and found so much wasted food, I realized I have to do better using up what I have instead of finding a recipe and ignoring what I have to go buy something else.

2 of the things to use up were zucchinis and buttermilk.  I remembered seeing this recipe for zucchini bread in a Food & Wine magazine, the original called for yogurt instead of buttermilk.  I almost started to run out for some yogurt before reminding myself to substitute.  I'm sure this bread is fantastic with yogurt, but I was quite pleased with how it turned out with the buttermilk.

I think this might be the best bread I've ever made.  The crust has a nice crunch to it, not too hard, just perfect.  And the inside is not too dense, just light and moist. 

Zucchini Bread

Recipe adapted from Food & Wine Magazine (Sept. 2009)

1 cup walnut halves
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp buttermilk
1 cup coarsely grated zucchini

Preheat oven to 325.  Spray a loaf pan with Pam baking spray, or butter and flour.  Spread walnut halves on a skillet and toast for about 8 minutes, until they are fragrant.  Transfer the walnuts to a cutting board and coursely chop them.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and powder, and salt.  In a medium bowl, mix together the eggs, sugars, vegetable oil, and buttermilk.  Add the dry ingredients along with the grated zucchini and toasted walnuts and stir until the batter is evenly moistened.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, until the loaf is risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let the loaf cool on a rack for 30 minutes before unmolding and serving.