Zucchini Banana Bread

 

This is a great recipe to use up some ripe bananas that have been sitting on your counter and the zucchini that keeps appearing in your garden!  It's a super simple and completely delicious recipe.  No mixer needed. Just a big bowl & a spoon or spatula to mix it.  I actually doubled the recipe and it made 8 mini loaves.  As you can tell from my photos, I put a super crunchy crumbly topping on all of my loaves.  It's a brown sugar, oatmeal, cinnamon concoction. It really made the bread outstanding - I highly recommend that addition.  I'm not into nuts in my baked goods so I left those out and I just didn't think the cranberries sounded good in this flavor combination although that is what the recipe called for - so I left them out also. The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and I realize that sounds like a lot, and I was hesitant to add a full tablespoon but I'm glad I did because it wasn't overpowering at all.  In fact, I think it could have used a bit more.  To make the bread a little bit healthy, I substituted 1 cup whole wheat flour for 1 cup of the all purpose. Wonderful!

I will definitely keep this recipe in my repertoire.  I love the fact that it's so simple.  I think you will enjoy it.  Be sure to watch it carefully, it goes from gooey middle to done rather quickly.  If you use mini loaf pans like I did, you will have to remove the loaves from the oven much sooner than the called for 50 minutes.  Just keep a close eye on them.  Mine were even more difficult to determine the doneness due to the huge amount of cumbly topping on them!

Zucchini Banana Bread allrecipes.com   3 eggs 3/4 cup vegetable oil 2/3 cup packed brown sugar 1 cup white sugar 1 cup grated zucchini 2 bananas, mashed 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat flour & 2.5 cups all purpose) 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup dried cranberries  (I didn't add) 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't add)   Preheat oven to 325 degrees F Grease and flour two 8x4 inch bread loaf pans. (I used 4 mini loaf pans) In a large bowl, beat eggs until light yellow and frothy. Add oil, brown sugar, white sugar, grated zucchini, bananas, and vanilla; blend together until well combined. Stir in the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix in the cranberries and nuts. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared loaf pans. At this point, I made a crumble topping to put on top of each of my mini loaves. I simply melted a stick of butter in the microwave, added some brown sugar (approx 1.5 cups) to it, some flour (approx 3/4 cup), about 1 tsp cinnamon and some old fashioned oats (approx 1 cup). Stir it  till completely mixed then sprinkled on top of each loaf before putting it in the oven. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Allow to cool in the loaf pans on a wire rack before removing and serving.