This recipe for Chocolate Chunk Zucchini Bread turns out a lightly sweetened zucchini bread loaf with a hint of chocolate here and there.
Surely you’ve made classic zucchini bread before. And you might have even tried my pineapple zucchini bread or my iced lemon zucchini bread. All of those are wonderful. This Chocolate Chunk Zucchini Bread is a little bit different. It’s made with olive oil instead of canola, and it’s lightly sweetened with honey instead of overly so with white and brown sugars.
Sea Salt and Honey
This recipe comes from the book, Sea Salt and Honey by Chloe, Olivia and Nicholas Tsakiris. This author family shares recipes they created in Kardamili, a very small seaside Greek town of 450 residents. I absolutely love that stories of their lives in this town are woven in and around the recipes in the book. It’s an interesting read, and it absolutely transports you to their world in Greece. I love regional, ethnic cookbooks, so this one is a lovely addition to my collection.
Here are a few recipes in the book that have caught my eye:
- zucchini chips
- gorgonzola Greek yogurt dip
- beet and orange salad
- savory Greek yogurt bowls
- chicken soup with egg, lemon and rice
- cauliflower pasta
- mushroom and beef broth risotto
- lentil chili slow cooked with beer
- four mushroom chowder
- traditional beef dolmades
- hot honey orange chicken
- sea salt and honey chocolate chip cookies
- fig frozen yogurt
Ingredients needed:
- olive oil
- baking powder and baking soda
- sea salt
- cinnamon
- honey
- egg
- Greek yogurt
- vanilla extract
- zucchini
- orange zest
- dark chocolate chunks
How to make Chocolate Chunk Zucchini Bread:
Whisk together the dry ingredients in one bowl. In a second bowl, whisk together the honey, olive oil, egg, Greek yogurt and vanilla extract. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir to combine. Fold in shredded zucchini, orange zest and chocolate chunks. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Add a few more chocolate chunks to the top, just to make it look prettier when baked!
Bake for 40 to 50 minutes. You want it to be golden brown on top. If it’s browning too quickly, place some foil over the top in the last minutes of baking to prevent from browning too much. Test the center with a knife or a skewer. It should come out clean.
Let your loaf of chocolate chunk zucchini bread cool completely before cutting. You can also save the whole thing for later by wrapping it in foil and then dropping it into a large zip baggie. Freeze for up to 3 months. Alternately, you can cut slices and freeze individual slices for random snacking (or tucking into lunch boxes).
This zucchini bread is delicious! The authors called for a little less honey and chocolate in their recipe, so I bumped up the honey and chocolate amounts slightly. It still isn’t overly sweet, and we liked it very much. There is a hint of orange flavor from the orange zest that comes with each bite. It’s a nice pairing with the chocolate in the bread. We love it almost as much as the Raspberry Dark Chocolate Banana Bread that we make so often. It’s definitely a nice change of pace from making classic banana bread. Enjoy!
Chocolate Chunk Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2/3 cup honey
- ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup whole milk Greek yogurt
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup finely shredded zucchini (about 1 large)
- 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
- ¾ cup dark chocolate chunks (plus a few more)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9x5-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the honey, olive oil, egg, yogurt and vanilla.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a large wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined. Fold in the zucchini, orange zest and chocolate chunks.
- Spread the batter into the prepared pan (top with a few extra chocolate chunks). Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If the top of the bread is browning too quickly, loosely cover it with a piece of foil.
- Remove from the oven and se ton a wire rack to cool. Allow to cool completely before slicing and serving.
Notes
- Add chopped walnuts, if you'd like- about 1/2 cup.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
