VTMK: Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I've become quite taken with vegan baking. I'm afraid this is for entirely unprincipled reasons, namely laziness and frugality. I love to bake, but I don't love having to run to the store when I realize that I don't have eggs or buttermilk (this is a problem, as you'll recall, because I am an impulse baker). I also don't love keeping eggs and buttermilk on hand because I don't use them that often and they end up spoiling (thus wasting money).

Vegan baking solves these problems. The staples in vegan baking are things I usually have either in my pantry or in my fridge already. The finished product turns out just as delicious as the non-vegan kind. It's a win-win.

Notes: I adapted the bread from this recipe. The original only calls for brown sugar, but it wasn't quite sweet enough for my taste. I wrote it with the added sugar.

This is a great way to use up extra zucchini. You could also replace the applesauce with a mashed up banana if you have one.

I will add my proviso here that this recipe is vegan to my knowledge, which is limited, so procede with caution.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups whole wheat or spelt flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup grated zucchini (about one medium zucchini)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 chia egg (1 tablespoon of chia seeds + 4 tablespoons water)

Directions: Heat oven to 350. 

Add all the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, sugars, baking powder, cinnamon, salt) to a large bowl and whisk to combine. 

Add the wet ingredients (water, vinegar, vanilla extract, applesauce) to a measuring cup and stir to combine. 

Mix up your chia egg in a small bowl. Add the wet ingredients, the grated zucchini, and the chia egg to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. 

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 40-45 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes then turn the loaf out on to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way. Enjoy!