Saturday, August 11, 2007

Zucchini Brownies

Yesterday I visited my cute Grandpa and he gave me 2 large zucchini and a gallon-sized bag of already shredded zucchini. I reminded him that I only need to feed myself and Joe, but he wouldn't let me leave with any less zucchini. So if my recipe experiments are all successful, you'll see many more zucchini recipes!
I was going to a Young Womens sleepover last night and needed to take a dessert so I thought it would be the perfect time to try out a chocolate and zucchini recipe. I searched my favorite recipe sites and found this brownie recipe on Allrecipes.com. I baked it yesterday evening and served it to my favorite taste-testers, my Beehives. I was a bit nervous and the girls asked if this was part of a Fear Factor game. I made everyone try it and give me their honest opinion - it was scrumptious! It was fluffy, moist, and reminded us of a sheet cake. Honestly, you could not tell anyone there is zucchini in it and no one would know the difference!

ZUCCHINI BROWNIES
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 1 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract (I ran out of vanilla and used almond extract, it was great!)
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 cups shredded zucchini
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I omitted this because I'm not a fan of nuts in my dessert)

Icing:

  • 6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 2 cups powder sugar
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (again, I used almond extract)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch baking pan.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar, and vanilla until well blended. Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in the zucchini and walnuts. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 25-30 minutes in the preheated oven, until the brownies spring back when gently touched. To make the icing, melt together the cocoa and butter, set aside to cool. In a medium bowl, blend together the powder sugar, milk and vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownies before cutting into squares.

9 comments:

Thistlemoon said...

This slinds absolutely wonderful! How sweet of your grandfather to send you home with so many zucchini!

My grandfather was a HUGE gardner too! Enjoy every minute of it!

Welcome to The Foodie Blogroll!

Unknown said...

hmm, you have me intrigued by this recipe. i may have to give it a try.

kristen said...

we get tons of zucchini from my husbands grandparents! I don't like it plain, so I have made a ton of loaves of zucchini bread, but I will have to try this one! sounds yummy!

The Yosts said...

Those look so good! I'll have to try the when we get back into the states. I think I'll have a difficult time with what I've got to make those. The icing is killing me it looks so good!

Michelle said...

Wow those look really good!! My husband loves zucchini bread and it will be fun to surprise him with this recipe.

Jenn said...

My friend sent this to me and I have to admit it sounded odd to me! However, as I was making dinner last night I was reading the recipe and it sounded simple enough to pull together (and as an added bonus, I happened to have a zuke in fridge from a farmer's market I had gone to! =).

So, I gave it a whirl and have to say (funny enough...) that this has to be one of the BEST home-made (not from a box) brownies I have ever had! I gave it to my husband without telling him about the "secret ingredient" and he a) really liked them (went back for seconds) and b) had no idea zucchini was in the brownie (not surprising =)!

So that we didn't eat them all, I am going to bring them into work and play "Guess the secret ingredient" game! hehe

Jenn said...

P.S. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

Chrissy said...

Out of curiousity, isn't zucchini sorta like a large cucumber?? Is that what really goes into brownies?? Is this an insiduous plot to make people take their veggies??

The brownies loook relly good, though, and I'm sure I'd dig into them, veggies inside or not :D

amycaseycooks said...

I made these over the weekend for my kids and their friends. I never told them that there was zucchini in them until after they devoured the pan. Super moist and the frosting is nice and chocolatey. My only recommendation would be to make them in a smaller pan. I like big, thick brownies.

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