Chocolate Quick Bread -- When the Zucchini Keeps Coming, You Bake

The zucchini has arrived. Not politely, not gradually — it has arrived the way zucchini always arrives in Vermont: overnight, massively, and with the implied threat that there is more where that came from. One day you have flowers on the vine. The next day you have a vegetable the size of a baseball bat and the vine is already producing another. I have been gardening for forty years and I have never understood how zucchini does this. I suspect it doesn't sleep.

I made zucchini bread. Two loaves — one for us, one for the Thibodeaus next door. Jerry and his wife Margaret are always grateful for baked goods, and the zucchini bread gives me cover for what is essentially a forced donation of surplus vegetables. I also left three zucchini on their porch. This is how neighbors communicate in Vermont: through the silent delivery of vegetables you can't use fast enough.

Helen picked the first tomatoes this week. Cherry tomatoes, small and red and warm from the sun. She brought them inside in her cupped hands, like she was carrying something precious, which she was. The first tomato of the year is precious. It's the payoff for two months of watering and worrying and watching the weather forecast with the anxiety of a parent whose child is walking to school alone for the first time. The tomato made it. We're all relieved.

I wrote a blog post about zucchini — what to do when the garden produces more than you can eat, which in July is always, and which for zucchini specifically is a crisis of abundance that has no solution except bread, neighbors, and the compost pile. The post was meant to be practical. It turned into something about generosity and the garden's insistence on giving whether you're ready to receive or not. That happens sometimes. You sit down to write about vegetables and end up writing about life. Hemingway knew this. So did Thoreau. So does anyone who's ever been alone in a kitchen with a zucchini the size of their arm.

July in the garden. Too much zucchini. First tomatoes. Two loaves of bread. Three zucchini on the Thibodeaus' porch. The garden gives and gives and gives, and our job is to keep up. We rarely do. That's the lesson. Grace exceeds our capacity to receive it. We try anyway.

The zucchini bread I made for the Thibodeaus was the classic kind — reliable, honest, exactly what it sounds like. But the second loaf, the one we kept for ourselves, I took in a different direction entirely: Chocolate Quick Bread, because if the garden is going to insist on abundance, you might as well meet it with chocolate. There’s something right about that equation. The zucchini disappears into the batter, the kitchen smells extraordinary, and by the time Helen came in from picking tomatoes, there was already a warm loaf waiting on the counter — proof that sometimes too much of something is exactly enough.

Chocolate Quick Bread

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Servings: 12 slices

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup shredded zucchini, excess moisture squeezed out
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
2. Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon until evenly blended.
3. Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until slightly thickened. Whisk in the vegetable oil, sour cream, and vanilla extract until smooth.
4. Fold together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in the shredded zucchini and chocolate chips.
5. Fill the pan. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and spread it evenly. Tap the pan gently on the counter to settle the batter.
6. Bake. Bake for 50—55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 35 minutes.
7. Cool before slicing. Let the loaf rest in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 230 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 33g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 190mg