Happy to be Home, with Chocolate

Cool and gray November days here still, we don't have anywhere to go till tomorrow, and Sean is home from school for the day -- a good occasion to make chocolate zucchini bread. I've found that if you don't have zucchini, applesauce works quite well as a substitute. You may just want to add a bit less sugar and oil, since the applesauce is sweeter and more runny than the shredded zucchini.


Chocolate Zucchini Bread

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour milk or buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups flour, all-purpose
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 cups zucchini shredded
1/4 cup chocolate chips (we used carob chips instead)


Directions

• Cream together butter, oil, sugar, vanilla, sour milk, and eggs.
• Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and cocoa; mix well.
• Fold in zucchini.
• Put batter into 2 greased and floured loaf pans.
• Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of each loaf before baking.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

Here's a version that you can print out.
Here's a slightly different version using slightly healthier ingredients.
For decadence, if you lived in Eugene, Oregon, you could make it the way my dear friend did who gave me the recipe... and sprinkle some Euphoria chocolate buttons on top. Oh, sometimes I am homesick for Oregon!

Tastes great with Chocolate Caramel Enchantment Chai Tea, given to me by a friend.

Aidan likes to help bake things, and get into pictures, too. : ).




















This is a neat idea. I could go on forever once I started but a few that come to mind right away are: fires in the hearth, the smells of cinnamon and coffee, giant conifers, cloudy skies, high school boys home from school for the day, ruby red laptops, cameras, early dusks, football, and voices of a range of kids involved happily in various activities. And chocolate caramel enchantment tea, and friends, even if they are far away.