GFCF Zucchini Bread

Today is the day of the week on which I typically post a GFCF menu. However, this week’s menu looks suspiciously like last week’s menu. Let’s blame it on the morning-noon-and-night sickness and say that sticking with what works is wise, not to mention beneficial to everyone.

Zucchini season began this week. My son grows amazingly huge zucchinis, and I always find myself wondering what to do with all of them. He innocently asked me to make him zucchini bread. Last summer, we lived on zucchini bread. We ate it for breakfast or snack almost every day.

Incidentally, there was still enough zucchini remaining for us to eat sauteed zucchini or fried zucchini or zucchini casserole with every single dinner for three months.

But I digress.

I winced when he made his request. He didn’t realize that my zucchini bread recipe consisted of wheat, wheat and more wheat. So I googled “GFCF Zucchini Bread” hoping to come across a recipe, but it was to no avail. Every recipe I found called for master mixes in a box. I buy bulk whole {unground} grains to save us money and add in extra nutrients.

But I’m not against boxes. However, I was at a disadvantage since I didn’t actually have a box.

So this is a recipe from scratch. I basically modified my old whole-wheat recipe and had it come out nicely. It is sort of like a quick bread, and sort of a cake. Hence the high sugar content. Someday, I’d like to modify my Nourishing Traditions recipe and incorporate soaking of the grains, but for now this will do.

In the recipe, I list the amount of flour. Grains take up more space once they are ground. So, for instance, in order to get 1/2 cup of amaranth flour, I ground a scant 1/3 cup of the grains. It takes some trial and error to get good at guessing how much to grind.

I like to grind grains {especially amaranth} right before cooking. This avoids the dreaded bad after tastes from rancid fats. Once a grain is ground, it starts to go downhill quickly! If you like to grind your grains ahead of time, I would suggest keeping freshly ground flour in an air tight container in the back of your refrigerator for no longer than a month. That’ll be your best bet if you are picky about fresh, healthy fats.

On to the recipe! Please note, this is for two loaves. Eat one fresh, and freeze the other for a rainy day.

GFCF Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
2 cups sorghum flour
1 cup arrowroot powder
1/2 cup amaranth flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup teff flour
1/4 cup almond meal {alternative: grind 1/2 cup walnuts in a coffee grinder until they are a fine paste…YUM}
1/2 tsp. GFCF baking powder
1 Tb. baking soda
2 tsp. sea salt
1+1/2 Tb. cinnamon
2 cups olive oil
3 cups packed brown sugar
1 Tb. GFCF vanilla extract
6 large eggs
4 cups grated zucchini

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, combine flours, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Sift together until well combined.

3. In a separate large bowl {I use the bowl for my fancy mixer since that is what I’m doing the mixing with}, mix olive oil, brown sugar, and vanilla extract. Add in eggs, one at a time, and make sure they are mixed in well.

4. Add in the dry mixture a little bit at a time. Speed doesn’t really matter, but I find the flours end up floating around the kitchen if I add them too quickly. Mix for about 4 minutes. You cannot overmix gluten-free flours, so have fun with it.

5. Mix in the grated zucchini. You will end up with a batter that is very, very soupy. That’s okay. Somehow, it magically worked out for me, and it should for you, too.

6. Divide mixture between two standard loaf pans. Bake on 350 for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.

7. Allow to cool completely before serving. I have learned my lesson. If you aren’t going to use xanthan gum, you need to let everything cool or it’ll all fall apart. You could add in xanthan gum. It’d be okay. I’d do it, if I had it in my kitchen, but I don’t, so there you go.

8. Eat for breakfast. Say yum. Accept the applause of your children.