Zucchini Banana Bread With Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting — The Zucchini That Hid Until It Was Ready

Tom Whelan showed me a section of Horses I Have Known that he'd revised — expanded a section about a mare named Delilah from the 1970s, added detail he'd remembered after thinking about it. The revision was better. Tighter in some places, more alive in others. He'd been working on it without mentioning it. I told him so and asked what made him go back to it. He said: I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd left out. That's how you know a writer has the disease — the pieces stay alive and ask for more.

We talked for a while about whether he should try to publish it. He's not sure there's an audience for it. I told him the audience exists for honest, specific work about a life that was lived fully and is written plainly. He said he was eighty in November. I said I knew. He said: Then there's not much time for worrying about whether there's an audience. I agreed there wasn't.

Second cutting is done. The barn is full, the equipment is cleaned and stored, and the summer's agricultural work — in the production sense — is essentially complete. What's left is harvest: the garden, the elk season in October, the autumn transition that ends with the ground frozen and the year wrapped up. I've lived this cycle my whole life. It still feels new at the beginning of each version.

Made a zucchini bread with the last of the rogue zucchini, the one that hid under a leaf and got to the size of a small log before I found it. Grated it, wrung out the water, mixed it into a sweet quick bread with oil and brown sugar and cinnamon. Mom keeps saying we have too much zucchini and she's right and also we'll be glad to have it in February. Most abundance problems have that dual quality.

That rogue zucchini — the one that hid under a leaf until it was practically a weapon — deserved better than the compost pile, and it got it. Grating it into bread felt like the right kind of ending for something that had worked so hard to survive unnoticed, and adding a couple of overripe bananas to the mix turned a simple pantry save into something genuinely worth making again. The browned butter cream cheese frosting is the part Mom didn’t expect, and it’s the part she asked about first when she tried a slice.

Zucchini Banana Bread With Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
• 1 cup grated zucchini, excess moisture wrung out
• Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1–2 tablespoons milk, as needed

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
3. Mix wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in the mashed bananas.
4. Wring the zucchini. Place the grated zucchini in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze firmly to remove as much moisture as possible. Fold into the wet mixture.
5. Combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold gently until just combined — do not overmix.
6. Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50–60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
7. Brown the butter. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and continue cooking, swirling occasionally, until it turns golden and smells nutty, about 3–4 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
8. Make the frosting. Beat the softened cream cheese until smooth. Add the browned butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add milk one tablespoon at a time to reach a spreadable consistency.
9. Frost and serve. Spread the frosting over the cooled loaf. Slice and serve, or store covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 39g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 210mg