Tea Bread Tuesday: Zucchini Bread

For this week's tea bread, I turned to one of my favorite cookbooks: The Silver Palate Cookbook. Unfortunately, this is one of the rare times when a recipe from this trusted source did not turn out as well as I hoped. The bread rose and then sunk in the center, and looked quite ugly when it came out of the oven. It was also too oily and heavy. Lastly, the recipe called for one teaspoon of ground cloves, but for my taste, a half teaspoon would have been plenty.

I took some to work today and it flew off the plate. I received many nice compliments about it, but frankly, my only other competition was the Break Room vending machine . . .

I cut the slices in half and picked the best pieces for the presentation below . . . Shh! Don't tell anyone, O.K.?

Here is the recipe, for those who, like me, are perennially curious . . .

1 tablespoon sweet butter

3 eggs

1¼ cups of oil

1½ cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups grated unpeeled raw zucchini

2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cups shelled walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter a 9 x 5 loaf pan.

2. Beat eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla until light and thick. Fold grated zucchini into oil mixture.

3. Sift dry ingredients together. Stir into zucchini mixture until just blended. Fold in the walnuts.

4. Pour batter into buttered loaf pan. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

5. Cool slightly, remove from pan, and cool completely on a rack.

1 loaf