How to Make Classic Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
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Zucchini season is officially in full swing. If you’re growing your own, this is about the time when you start begging neighbors to take some and using it in absolutely every single meal. When a zucchini plant is ready, it sure produces a lot! So, here’s my favorite way to use zucchini: classic chocolate chip zucchini bread.
Choose Your Loaf Pan Carefully
First things first, you need to prep your loaf pan. And, I guess, before that, you need to choose the correct pan. So, here’s my two cents.
I prefer to use a dark metal, non-stick pan. This shortens the cooking time of the loaf. When you use a glass pan, it can add on as much as 20 minutes of time in the oven. At a minimum, my zucchini bread needs to bake for an hour at 325ºF. The low and slow method allows for it to stay really moist all the way through without that weird line of raw-ish bread at the bottom.
I’ll link my favorite loaf pan at the bottom.
The Best Method for Mixing Zucchini Bread Batter
The key here is to do dry ingredients into wet ingredients. So, you want to assemble them separately.
First, melt your butter and let it cool. Note that I’m just saying to melt it, not brown it. This isn’t a super fancy recipe, okay? It’s just really simple and darn good.
However, if you take the extra step of browning your butter, you need to add 2 Tablespoons of water so your bread isn’t too dry. Browning causes some liquid to evaporate from your melted butter, just remember that.
To the cooled melted butter, you’ll whisk in the brown sugar. Now, I have used dark and light brown sugar, but I have not used the organic kind. That tends to have a lot less moisture. Dark or light work great. The only difference is that dark brown sugar has more molasses, so your loaf will have a deeper flavor and a darker color.
Add your eggs one at a time and whisk until the mixture is velvety smooth. Add vanilla and milk. Then, all you have to do is fold in your shredded zucchini.
Now, for the dry ingredients, grab a mesh sieve. I measure my dry ingredients right into the sieve so I can sift them directly into the wet ingredients. All this really does is saves me from washing another bowl. Once everything is sifted into the bowl, give it a cursory fold. I like to get it about halfway mixed together before adding in the chocolate chips.
This just helps me avoid overmixing my batter, but gets the chocolate chips appropriately distributed.
Do You Need To Press the Zucchini First?
Before you make zucchini bread, you might wonder if you need to drain some of the liquid out of it. “Draining” means salting the shreds and letting them sit in a colander as the liquid falls away. For some recipes, this helps prevent a soggy loaf. However, this recipe works best without draining your zucchini. Talk about a time saver.
The Best Chocolate Chips for Zucchini Bread
Most of us probably keep semi-sweet chocolate chips on hand. They’re the classic chip for making chocolate chip cookies, and they’re the one chip that stores actually sell in economical large bags. Because of that easy access, that is what I use in my recipe.
Now, if you want to really fancy, milk chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips work great in this recipe. I just have to make a couple of suggestions. If you want to use milk chocolate chips, definitely use dark brown sugar. There’s a little bit of bitterness to that sugar that will balance your sweeter chips. Likewise, if you use dark chocolate chips, use light brown sugar. You don’t want too much bitterness.
Jazzing Up Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
If you’re a fan of crunchy nuts in your zucchini bread, I recommend toasting either pecans or walnuts. You can add a cup of nuts to the batter with the chocolate chips, and it’ll bake up just right. Keep in mind this adds 1 cup of volume to your batter, so it might take a couple more minutes to bake. Just keep an eye out.
If you want to do this with less sugar, try Lily’s brand chips. They’re sweetened with stevia instead of sugar, so they’re just as sweet, but lower in calories.
The Importance of Cooling Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
While I will admit to cutting directly into a hot loaf of zucchini or banana bread, I have to urge you to wait for it to cool. You can reheat a slice and get the same joy as a fresh-from-the-oven bite. The reason being a hot loaf is going to collapse on you. You’ll get a crumbly, mess that squashes under the knife. Because it is so tender, it needs to cool to hold its shape.
So, let that loaf cool! Do it!
Or don’t. I can’t actually tell you what to do. I only write these posts to answer questions you might have about the recipe, but most people skip past it. In fact, if you’re actually reading this post, drop me a comment and just say “Hi!”
The Tools You’ll Need
As I mentioned, below is the link to my favorite pan for chocolate chip zucchini bread, as well as a couple of other things you’ll need:
Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 1½ cups shredded zucchini (roughly 1 large zucchini)
- 1 cup light brown sugar packed
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted and cooled
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp milk
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp pink Himalayan salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips divided
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Butter and line a loaf pan with parchment paper.
- Beat together the melted butter and brown sugar. Add in the eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla and milk until combined.
- Fold in the shredded zucchini.
- Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon into the bowl. Fold to just barely combine.
- Fold in 1 cup of the chocolate chips until no dry spots remain. Do not overmix.
- Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup of chocolate chips on top.
- Bake for 60 to 75 minutes, depending on your pan. See notes. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center.
- Allow to cool in the pan until safe to touch. Remove to a cooling rack to cool completely before serving (if you have the self-control… otherwise, enjoy a nice warm slice with gooey melted chocolate).
