Saturday, August 20, 2011

Summer Squash Bread


We're growing both zucchini and patty pan squash in our garden this year. There have been remarkably few zukes, but a bumper crop of patty pan squash. I looked through my recipes and checked online and cobbled together a few to create my very own Summer Squash Bread....or in this case, patty pan squash bread.

Each of our patty pans is about 4-5 inches in diameter and yields about 1-1.25 cups of grated squash. I used one patty pan for each loaf of bread. I cut off the top and bottom and grated them up, skin and all. If the squash is big or has large seeds, it's a good idea to scoop them out before grating the squash. A food processor is really useful for the prep work, making short work of grating the squash and chopping the nuts. Some of the nuts really get pulverized, but that just adds to the richness of the batter.


I was going for big batches with this recipe -- obviously it can be easily halved (or any fraction you want to calculate). If halving, consider using a larger loaf pan and making two loaves - just increase the cooking time a bit.


Summer Squash Bread

Yield: 5 loaves

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease five 8x4 inch loaf pans.

Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups white flour
2 tsps baking soda
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
6 tsps ground cinnamon
2 tsps ground nutmeg

6 eggs
2 cups vegetable oil
4 cups sugar
6 tsps vanilla

6 cups grated squash (patty pan or zucchini or other summer squash)
3 cups chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Instructions

Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl.

Beat eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla in a (very) large bowl.

Stir flour mixture and grated squash into egg mixture, alternating flour and squash and adding a bit at a time to allow ingredients to mix together without creating a huge mess.

Fold in chopped nuts.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 60-70 minutes or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow to cool in pans about 20 minutes, then remove bread from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Serve plain or with butter or cream cheese. This makes a delicious breakfast bread.

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