- Prep-time: / Ready In:
- Makes 1 loaf (about 10 slices)
- Serving size: 1 slice
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This sweet loaf of zucchini bread gets its tender crumb from a secret ingredient: avocado. Enjoy a slice at room temperature or toasted. Use the large holes of a box grater to get perfectly grated zucchini.
Recipe from Forks Over Knives—The Cookbook
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup unsweetened, unflavored plant-based milk
- 1 avocado, halved, seeded, peeled, and mashed
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
- ½ cup pure cane sugar or date sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1½ cups spelt flour
- ½ teaspoon regular or sodium-free baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 small zucchini, shredded (1 cup)
- ⅓ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8x4-inch nonstick or silicone loaf pan with parchment paper. In a large bowl stir together the first four ingredients (through sugar). Beat with a mixer on medium until smooth and creamy. Beat in vanilla and lemon zest. Add the next six ingredients (through allspice); beat until well combined. Fold in zucchini and, if desired, walnuts.
- Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake 60 to 70 minutes or until top is very firm to the touch and sides are pulling away from pan. Cool in pan on a wire rack 30 minutes. Use parchment to lift bread from pan to wire rack. Let bread cool completely before slicing.
Nutritional Information:
Per serving (1 slice): 157 calories, 29 g carbohydrates, 4 g protein, 3.9 g total fat, 0.6 g saturated fat, 0 g cholesterol, 198 mg sodium, 4.3 g fiber, 12 g sugar
Note: Nutritional information is provided as an estimate only.
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Comments (37)
(5 from 11 votes)Can you substitute zucchini for carrots? Or do you need the moisture from the zucchini?
HI Diana, While we haven't tested this substitution, we think that carrots are likely to also work here. If you decide to try it, let us know how it goes!
I have made this recipe twice and have a hard time getting it done. In fact I just made it again but finally shopped baking it. I even put it in smaller baking bread pans and it still isn't baked through. I do double the recipe but that shouldn't keep it from not baking correctly. I also add mini chocolate chips to it. I have read in other recipes that they squeeze out some of the liquid in the zucchini but yours doesn't say to do that. I also use regular flour instead of the spelt flour. Otherwise I like your recipes. And we live on a plant based diet. Maybe you can help
I meant to add that it would be good to have a measurement for the avocado. As others have said, they vary in size. Mine was medium.
My zucchini was quite moist and I packed it in the measuring cup. Big mistake. It was raw inside, too much moisture. The top that was baked was good, but I would leave out the allspice as another who commented mentioned. I will try again another day and will just use cinnamon.
any suggestions for less sugar? that seems like a lot and we try not to use it if we can.
Hi Zara, You could try using an equal amount of date paste instead. It may make your loaf a bit more moist than usual, which could be fixed with a little extra bake time or a dash more flour. Give it a try and let us know how it goes!
Why do so many recipes on this website contain sugar? (And chocolate chips, lol - what kind of tree do those come from?) I come here for recipes that are WFPB, and more and more I am being disappointed. I know a lot of these recipes are for people in transition from a less healthy diet, but shouldn't there at least be a truly WFPB option listed for each recipe? Or better yet, post recipes that are actually WFPB with you a transitions option, for people who still need training wheels. I feel like you are losing credibility as a WFPB website when you post recipes like this and call them healthy.
Any other flours you suggest? I don't do well with spelt. Thanks. Beautiful.
Love this recipe - the best ever. Can you freeze it?
what is spelt flour
I love this recipe and have made it several times. I bake it for 55 minutes and have been happy with the results. I've been using a medium to large avocado with good results. I just omit allspice because I don't have it in my spice cabinet right now. Thank you!
I just made this today and my husband loves it! And he's not even a vegan! I followed the recipe exactly. I was a little concerned with the comments below about the batter (EX: needing applesauce, avocado oil to soften the batter), but I didn't need to adjust at all. I used a standard large avocado that had been ripe for about 2-3 days. The only adjustment for next time, and maybe it's my oven, but I will bake it for 70 minutes instead of 65, and maybe leave it in the oven for a few minutes after turning it off. It pulled away from the parchment paper, was firm to the touch, and had a nice browning on it. It's still was borderline mushy inside despite the appearance on the outside. I will definitely make this again. Thank you!
As others have said, the batter is very dry and dough like before adding the zucchini. In the future, I will add the zucchini to the avocado/sugar mixture first, and will sift the dry ingredients together before adding to the batter. I ended up having to substitute whole wheat flour & coconut sugar; also added an additional 1 tablespoon of avocado oil (my avocado was very small), 1 tablespoon of plant milk, and 1/2 cup of zucchini. The bread came out very moist and the flavor was good.
Batter was super thick and dry. Maybe my avocado was too small? Added about 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce but still very thick - like a paste. Divided the batter up in a silicon muffin pan and baked for 20 min. Didn't raise and is a dense type of muffin but still hits the spot.
I'm with you. Avocados vary so much in size that having the amount on cups would help especially if you're subbing out for applesauce or something else.
Guys, I fed it into a recipe nutrition calculator. Planning for it to serve 6 (not sure if that's accurate) you get 569 calories and 103 carbs per serving.
Yikes!!!
I usually get more like 10 or 12 slices from a loaf pan, so that makes the calorie count per slice a bit more reasonable.
Where are the nutrition facts?
I'm very interested in changing my life to plant based eating
Hi Nancy, we have not included calorie information in our recipes to avoid encouraging nutrient tallying and calorie counting, which can create more problems than they solve. With a whole-food, plant-based diet, it's recommended to eat until comfortably satiated instead of counting calories. The higher water and fiber content of whole plant-based foods allows our bodies to more accurately gauge how much food we need to eat. If your condition requires you to know specific nutrient information, we recommend entering our recipes into online nutritional software, like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal. You may find Jeff Novick’s “The Caloric Density Approach to Nutrition and Lifelong Weight Management” article helpful: http://www.forksoverknives.com/the-calorie-density-approach-to-nutrition-and-lifelong-weight-management/
Can I use either regular spelt flour or sprouted spelt flour?
Either should work! If you wish to pivot to another whole grain flour, we recommend checking out our whole grain flour guide: https://www.forksoverknives.com/how-tos/types-whole-grain-flour-guide-whole-wheat-flours/
My husband loved this -- and he's not fully WFPB. I agree with other commenters who said the batter really doesn't pour. You need to spoon or ladle it into the loaf plan. Well worth the effort.
Can I use some other flour? Perhaps Hazelnut or almond flour? Also a substitute for the sugar?
How many calories (approximately,) are in one slice?
Im trying this for the second time as I thought I did something wrong the first time but the directions say pour, really??? I followed it exactly and the batter is anything but.......what is the consistency suppose to be like going into the loaf pan?
Avocados come in different sizes. Could you please state how many tablespoons your avocado ended up being? Thank you.
Sounds yummy! Any suggestions to replace the avocado? I am allergic to them! Thanks!
I use applesauce in place of oil whenever I bake banana bread, brownies, cakes, etc. You could it in place of the avocado. Unsweetened, natural applesauce. I buy the individual cups that come six to a box.
Pretty good, but too salty. The salt highlights the avocado, but not in a good makes this a savory bread. Otherwise, pretty good. Next time I'd half the salt. May need a little more date sugar too. Also, this is a thick batter. You can't "pour batter..." as the instructions state. You have to press it into the pan. The result isn't dry, however.
Really delicious! I added chocolate chips and used white rice flour (1 to 1) because I wasn’t able to find spelt flour. Turned out beautifully! I also used a food processor for my zucchini to make sure it was in very small pieces. All of these adjustments seemed to work perfectly. Any way we could get approximate nutrition information for 1 piece?
Have made this many times. Love it! Note - I substituted millet flour once when I was out of spelt flour and the bread was dry.
We LOVE your recipes!
This looks really wonderful. I follow a vegetarian keto diet. I know how to sub-out the sugars but I'm not sure about the flour. Very curious as to whether there is a good low carb flour, or combination thereof, that could be used in place of the spelt flour to maintain the right texture. Perhaps almond in conjunction with psyllium husk or ground flax seed might work. Any recommendations?
This was so good that we’d eaten half of it within an hour! I left out the walnuts because one of my kiddos doesn’t like them.