Baking With Babies

 

I was trying to get a blog post put together last week. I baked this zucchini pineapple bread recipe just hours before my friend Talley sent me her zucchini bread recipe on Thursday night. I had lost the one I used years ago (probably more like the one Talley sent me) and I found another one on the internet. Since there is so much zucchini, I figure you can't have too many zucchini recipes, so I'm posting yet one more. (But this is the last one.)

Here's how I managed to bake last week. I'm betting it didn't take Talley a week to get her bread made.

Monday:  Wash the zucchini Daddy-O brought in from the garden.

Tuesday: Set out all of the ingredients. Make sure they are pushed way back out of Baby Girl's reach.

Wednesday: Put the babies to bed. Measure dry ingredients before I fall over. Cover bowl.

Thursday: Measure wet ingredients. Mix batter, while keeping baby out of trouble. Bake loaves. Call for help when Baby Girl tries to help me take the pans out of the oven.

Friday: Wash the mixing bowls and utensils. Eat a slice of zucchini bread—sharing my piece with Little Sister. Put them to bed. Now sit down and eat another slice. All by myself.

Saturday: Give thanks I made it to the end of another week.

ZUCCHINI PINEAPPLE BREAD
      ...adapted from Southern Plate

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs, lightly beaten
¾ cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups shredded zucchini (1–2 medium)
1 (8-oz) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup raisins, dredged* in flour

Mix first 5 ingredients together in a large bowl. (I used a whisk to blend.)

Stir together eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla and zucchini in a medium bowl. Pour into dry ingredients. Mix all together. Stir in raisins.

Pour into two 4x8-inch well greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour. (I had to cover my pans loosely with foil midway through baking time because it was browning so quickly.)

Or, pour into four to six well greased mini loaf pans and bake at 350 for about thirty minutes, or until centers are no longer soft. 


*dredged just means to toss raisins with a couple of teaspoons of flour before adding to the batter. That keeps them from sinking to the bottom.


Any quick bread like this freezes well. Wrap tightly in heavy duty foil, and then I like to slide the wrapped loaves into freezer Ziploc bags for extra protection.

We are done with zucchini recipes for now. I promise.