Not My Mother’s Kitchen – Lemon Zucchini Muffins
Not My Mother’s Kitchen posts feature my adventures and misadventures in the kitchen. The title comes from the simple fact that my mom is an AMAZING cook while my cooking most days falls into the good but not spectacular category. There are days when I think my creativity ends with paper, but sometimes I surprise even myself!
We’re off to brunch with friends this morning and I offered to bring along some zucchini bread to add to the feast. My son is a muffin lover and any opportunity to get an extra veggie in his day works for me.
After looking through several cookbooks, the web, and the fridge to assess the state of things, I settled on adapting the Zucchini Orange Bread recipe found in my Pillsbury Encyclopedia of Baking. It’s on the same page as what must be my default Banana Bread recipe because the page has now come loose from the binding of the book.
A great food blogger would have taken a photo of the cast of culinary characters for you. Let’s face it, I’m a complete amateur in food blogging at this point, and I was more focused on letting said muffin lover assist with the zesting and juicing of lemons, so I didn’t catch that initial shot. Next time I promise I’ll give the ingredients their proper introduction.
The recipe will make 2 loaves or in my case 24 standard sized muffins.
You’ll need:
4 eggs
1-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup oil
2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (in this case it was 3 lemons)
2 cups shredded, unpeeled zucchini (I used the fine shred blade on my Cuisinart)
3-1/4 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
zest of 3 lemons
Heat the oven to 350°.
In a large bowl (I put it in the bowl of my Kitchenaid stand mixer), beat eggs until thick and lemon colored; gradually beat in sugar. Stir in oil, lemon juice and zucchini. Stir in remaining ingredients; mix well.
At this point I pulled out two standard sized (12 wells per pan) and dropped in these dreams of muffin papers.
My parents turned me on to them. I get them via web order from Green Feet. Best $2.50 I spend to reduce hubby’s dishwashing load.
I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup to fill each cup and popped the trays in the oven for 15 minutes. At this point I flipped their position in the oven and baked them an additional 10 minutes. At the end of the 10 minutes I popped a skewer in a muffin in each pan that came out cleanly and pulled them out.
They are flat topped. Someday I’ll figure out the secret for muffins with a fluffy round top.
While they have a great flavor and are super super moist, I don’t find them to be overly lemony. I’ll have to do further experiments to see how to increase the lemon quotient in the finished product.
This recipe will also make 2 loaves of bread. According to the instructions, grease and flour the bottom of a loaf pan only and bake for 45 to 55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out cleanly. You can also swap my 2/3 cup lemon juice for the original 2/3 cup orange juice and glaze the cool muffins or loaves with 1 cup powdered sugar and 2 to 3 teaspoons of lemon or orange juice.