Lemon Zucchini Bread

A recipe! Life has been absolutely crazy since Clara joined our family (just over three weeks ago). It has been much harder than I expected, and yet awesome in so many ways. Between recovering from delivery, nonstop breastfeeding, very little sleeping, family visiting, husband graduating, and trying my best to ignore the fact that we're moving in three weeks, you might guess I haven't had much time for cooking. But then my sister (who has started a recipe blog of her own) visited this week and graciously baked this delicious bread for me. So technically I didn't make this- but I did grate the zucchini. Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm back with more recipes- and a few photos of our baby girl- to share. In the mean time I leave you with this sweet loaf of lemony zucchini bread.

Lemon Zucchini Bread

INGREDIENTS
2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup sugar (the original recipe calls for 2/3 cup but I found 1/3 cup to be plenty sweet)
1/2 cup buttermilk
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 cup zucchini, grated

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, blend flour, salt, and baking powder; set aside.

 3. In a medium bowl, beat 2 eggs then add applesauce and sugar and blend well. Then add the buttermilk, lemon juice, and lemon zest and blend everything well. Fold in zucchini and stir until evenly distributed in mixture.

 4. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl and blend everything together, but don’t overmix.

 5. Pour batter into prepared 9×5 loaf pan and bake in preheated oven for 35-45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack and cool completely.

Makes 1 loaf.

(Adapted from Nancy Creative via For the First Thyme)