zucchini bread with ras el hanout

we've been getting all sort of delicious zucchinis and squashes from Rob (the organic farmer with whom we have a CSA arrangement and about whom, incidentally, we absolutely cannot stop talking - he makes our life wonderful and we adore him) and have been meaning for a while now to make some bread out of them. unfortunately, after scouring each and every one of our standby cookbooks, we couldn't come up with anything more interesting than your standard cinnamon-cloves-cup-and-a-half-of-oil recipe. and then we found this one. like it was meant to be. we adapted a little, but really, she's great. she does great things, this woman. the ras el hanout doesn't overpower the bread like we thought it might - it adds a wonderful spiced flavor, more interesting (but not abrasively so) than traditional zucchini bread spices. next time we might try it with an indian curry instead of the ras el hanout.

when it comes to bakeware, we use silicone almost exclusively, and this saves us a lot of hassle with things like breads and cakes of the steps of buttering and flouring our pans. my mother, who has been baking for coming up on half a century, can't seem to get her head around silicone bakeware, as she never expects it to be hot after spending time in the oven and is constantly burning her fingers as a result. if you can manage to stick with oven mitts, we encourage you to try out silicone bakeware to save yourself a few extra steps.

Zucchini Bread with Ras el Hanout
Adapted from 101 Cookbooks

makes 2 loaves

bowl 1:
1.5 c. chopped walnuts
1/3 c. poppy seeds
zest of 2 lemons

bowl 2:
1/2 c. unsalted butter
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 eggs
2 t. vanilla extract

3 c. grated zucchini, skins on, with as much of the moisture squeezed out as possible

bowl 3:
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. bran
1 c. minus 3 T. all purpose white flour
3 T. wheat germ
1.5 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 T. ras el hanout

preheat the oven to 350°F.

combine the ingredients of bowl 1 and set aside.

use a handmixer to beat the butter until fluffy. add the sugars and beat again until the mixture comes together and is no longer crumbly. add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping down the sides of the bowl between each addition. beat in the vanilla. (bowl 2).

fold the zucchini into bowl 2 until well mixed.

combine all ingredients of bowl 3. add bowl 3 to bowl 2 in 2 batches, stirring between each addition. fold in bowl 1, saving about 2 T. of mixture to be sprinkled on top (this will create a nice crust after baking.

divide the batter between 2 loaf pans, then sprinkle the remainder of bowl 1 on top. bake for about 40-45 minutes on the middle rack. cool in pans for about 10 minutes then turn out onto wire racks.

the bread will be very crumbly if you try to cut it while it's still warm, but it's definitely worth it!