In some parts of the country, the first fresh vegetables of the summer are on. You’ll find that you can use many of the vegetables from the garden in your baking—adding color, flavor, and nutrition to your baking.
Here is a wonderful bread recipe for all that zucchini squash that seems to overwhelm us each summer. Some fresh carrots are added for color and nutrition. Unlike the quick bread recipes for zucchini squash, this is a yeasted recipe.
This is not a sweet bread recipe and so it makes wonderful sandwiches and toast. We like it with peach and apricot jam.
Summer Zucchini and Carrot Bread Recipe
Any time that you add vegetables to your bread, be prepared to adjust the amount of flour that you use. Vegetables will add moisture to your bread and how they are grated or pureed along with the type of vegetables, will determine the moisture added. But it’s easy to add a little more flour; a little more difficult to dribble in a bit of water. Because it is easier to add flour than water, start your dough a bit on the wet side and add flour as needed.
Because zucchini has such a high moisture content, salt is used to draw some of the moisture from the squash.
Ingredients
3 cups coarsely grated zucchini squash
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups coarsely grated carrots
3 1/2 cups white bread flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 seven-gram packet of instant yeast
1 1/4 cup warm water, 110 degrees
2 cups fine ground whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon dough conditioner
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions
- Grate the zucchini. Place the zucchini in colander over the sink and stir in the salt. The salt will draw water from the zucchini. Grate the carrots and set them aside.
- Place the white bread flour, sugar, and yeast in the bowl of your stand-type mixer. Add the warm water and beat with a dough hook until it is partially mixes. The purpose of this mix is to hydrate the yeast.
- Squeeze the water from the zucchini. Add the vegetables to the mixer bowl along with the whole wheat flour, the dough conditioner, the rest of the salt, the butter, and the cinnamon. Knead with the dough hook at medium speed for four minutes. You will likely need to adjust the moisture level either by adding flour or water. Start out a little on the dry side as the kneading tends to wring water from the zucchini. Set the dough in a greased bowl, turn once, and cover. Set the bowl in a warm place and allow it to double in size.
- Grease two large loaf pans. Form two loaves, cover them, and let them rise until doubled and puffy.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until done. The internal temperature should be at 190 to 200 degrees. If this bread is under baked, with all the vegetables, it will tend to be soggy. Remove the bread from the pans and let the loaves cool on a wire rack.
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