The idea for jazzing up quick bread recipes comes from Annie Baker, a respected pastry chef in California’s Napa Valley. Wrap and freeze the second zucchini bread if you don’t plan to eat it within a day or two.–Janet Fletcher | Chefs of Sur La Table
WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO MINCE CANDIED GINGER?
As you make this zucchini bread recipe, you may find yourself frustrated at the stick-to-it-iveness of the candied ginger. A sharp knife helps, for sure. But this little tip is also worth its weight in gold, we think. Take a paper towel that’s been doused with a little bit of mild tasting oil, and occasionally slick the blade as you’re slicing. That candied ginger will lose all of its overzealous attachment issues. Our tester Leanne Abe uses flour sprinkled over the ginger, rather than the oil slicked knife and swears that it works just as well.
Carrot-Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- Nonstick cooking spray
- 3 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt
- 1/2 cup minced candied ginger, see LC Note above
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup canola oil
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup carrots, peeled and grated on the large holes of a box grater
- 1 cup zucchini, peeled and grated on the large holes of a box grater
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325ºF (162°C). Coat two 9-by-5 or 8 1/2-by-4 1/2 loaf pans with nonstick cooking spray.
- Sift together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Stir in the salt and candied ginger.
- In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until light and foamy. Add the canola oil, sugar, and vanilla, whisking vigorously until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in the carrots and zucchini.
- Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture all at once and stir with a wooden spoon just until blended. Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared pans.
- Bake until the zucchini bread is well risen and firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let the zucchini bread cool in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert them and finish cooling them right side up on the rack. Of course, a thin slice for the cook while the loaves are warm isn't out of the question.
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Nutrition
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Recipe Testers’ Reviews
Did you know only 68% of the recipes we test make it onto the site? This recipe survived our rigorous blind testing process by multiple home cooks. It earned the Leite’s Culinaria stamp of approval—and the testers’ reviews below prove it.
This is a nice, moist zucchini bread, flecked with color from the carrots and perked up by the candied ginger. My only complaint is that it didn’t use more zucchini. Two shredded medium carrots yielded 1 cup, and half of a large zucchini made 1 shredded cup.
The batter mixed quickly and it was done in an hour. It didn’t rise as much as I thought it would, but that’s okay. It’s not an overwhelmingly spiced cake, and it’s not too sweet either. It was great out of the oven, cooled and nibbled at, and I’m guessing it’ll be fantastic toasted with some butter.
The second loaf went into the freezer for later, but it probably won’t be too long before we’re pulling it out. A tip: If the candied ginger is sticking to your knife too much, sprinkle it with some flour and just mix it in as you’re mincing.
A great twist on a favorite bread. All you need is a bit of cream cheese to get a carrot-cake knockoff. This is a very moist and delightful bread, easy to make and a perfect way to use up the summer stock of zucchini.
The addition of the crystallized ginger is an added bonus. You can find chopped crystallized ginger in small cans in the baking aisle. They’re well worth the purchase to keep on hand for something like this.
This quick bread was a big hit in our house. We enjoyed it as a simple breakfast with hot coffee. It was sweet and a little bit spicy from the bits of candied ginger throughout. I really loved the crispy, crunchy texture of the edges, too.
When I first realized I’d be making two loaves, I thought it would be nice to take the second loaf to work with me the following day, but as I sliced a second and then third piece for myself for breakfast, I realized we might not have much left to share by the time the weekend was over.
I didn’t have the correct-sized loaf pan, so I used 9-by-5-inch pans and checked carefully after the 45-minute mark to make sure I didn’t overbake the loaf. One pan was done at 50 minutes and the other I pulled out at 55. Both had a beautiful texture—soft and slightly dense on the inside, crispy sweet crust on the outside.
Cross carrot cake with zucchini bread, toss in some candied ginger, and you have a tasty, spiced quick bread laced with fresh vegetables. This is a summer treat that makes it worth heating up the kitchen. Some toasted walnuts or pecans would also be a nice addition.
One note: Either these loaves didn’t rise as much as they were supposed to or the pans were larger than they needed to be. Each pan looked as though it had a fairly skimpy allotment of batter, and the final breads were also smaller than I’d have thought.
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I’ve made this wonderful recipe many times and it’s so so good! Now I’m wondering if it would work well to use a “measure for measure” GF blend instead of regular AP. I’m taking 2 desserts to a party and one is a chocolate cake so I’m trying to come up with one that’s not chocolate that everyone will enjoy, especially the host who is GF. I know I can make it as mini cupcakes (have done it in multiple shapes and sizes over the years), but I don’t have much experience with GF baking. Would love any insight!
Emilie, I love hearing you’ve made this a bunch. Thanks for trusting LC. And… smart move balancing out a chocolate cake with something lighter.
So, short answer: yeup, a good GF blend should work beautifully here, and I think you’re picking the right recipe to test it on.
This bread is loaded with moisture and fat—a full cup of oil, 3 eggs, and 2 cups of grated carrot and zucchini—and gluten-free flours are notoriously thirsty, so all that built-in richness gives you a nice cushion. On top of that, it’s leavened with baking soda and baking powder, not yeast, so there’s no gluten structure to fake. That’s basically the dream scenario for a GF swap.
A few things that might help:
Would love to know how it turns out. I hope your host’s extra touched that someone thought of them. Report back. Chow.
My batter/dough came out very thick. I didn’t change the recipe at all! I had to press it into pans. I’ll see what happens, still in oven.
Lynn, well, that is odd. My hunch is one of two things: either the oil got left out by accident, or the flour packed down when measuring (measuring cups can be pain in the ass that way. Weighing your flour is always the best hedge against it, if you want to give it another go).
For anyone else landing here with the same issue: if your batter looks more like dough than batter, those are the two most likely culprits.
I hope the loaves resurrect in the oven. Let me know what happened. Chow.
I’ve made this recipe at least 10 times, and it never fails. It works without the candied ginger, it works with half brown sugar when you run out of white, it works when you have it and use 2 eggs instead of 1.5 eggs. It works with eyeballing the vegetables.
Perfection.
Thanks, Annie!