After feeling as if I had nearly traumatized Maximus with the attempts at getting him to eat yesterday's Cheddar Mini-Fritattas, I decided to try something I was pretty sure he would devour.
I originally found this recipe 4 years ago, when I had my first zucchini surplus from the garden. That was my first year gardening and also the year I realized a family of 2 needed 1 zucchini plant, at the most. I had 2, plus 2 summer squash and 1 sunburst squash. I went overboard and was drowning in squash. The original recipe for this quick bread came from epicurious, but I have modified it so much over the years that I had to rewrite the recipe because my notes were more voluminous than the recipe itself.
In bread form, I give this away as gifts and have been asked for the recipe more times than I can count. It originally appealed to me because I was looking for a way to get more vegetables into Moose and he does not like sweet potatoes, nor zucchini. I looked at it as a challenge.
The first time I made it, I followed the recipe religiously, but then set about trying to make it healthier. I replaced all oil with homemade canned applesauce, started replacing portions of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour and set about trying to reduce the sugar content. This summer, the idea of replacing the sugar entirely with natural sweetner and making a gluten and dairy-free version began simmering around in my mind.
Since I am still not at a point in the elimination diet where I can even try a gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free version of this recipe, I decided to just replace the sugar in this trial run and have Moose try it to tell me what he thought. I decided to try it in mini-muffin form to make it easier to handle for the boys, as well as to make it easier to freeze manageable portions for later. This bread freezes amazingly well! Finally, I added a small amount of oil back into the recipe because I now understand the importance of healthy fats in any diet.
Oh... and by the way, Moose LOVES my original modified bread form of this recipe, so much so that I finally told him a couple years ago he was eating sweet potatoes and zucchini and loving it!
Sweet Potato and Zucchini Mini-Muffins
2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp + a pinch baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 cup good quality maple syrup (I used Vermont maple syrup Moose got on a business trip)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/8 cup grapeseed oil (you could also use extra virgin olive oil)
3 large eggs (I use omega-3 enriched)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1 1/2 cups grated peeled sweet potato
1 cup chopped walnuts (I used almonds this time because I was out of walnuts. You could also leave these out if you have a tree nut allergy)Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a mini-muffin tin with olive oil or non-stick cooking spray. Sift first 5 ingredients into medium bowl. Beat maple syrup, oil, eggs and vanilla to blend in large bowl. Mix in zucchini and sweet potato. Add dry ingredients and nuts and stir well.
Transfer batter to prepared muffin tin. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 14 minutes. Let muffins cool for a couple minutes and then pop them out to cool completely on a wire rack. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature if entire recipe is not devoured within minutes.
Makes approximately 44 mini-muffins.
My Notes:
I grate the zucchini and sweet potato by hand, even though I find the task odious. I am sure you could do it in the food processor, but I find that when you hand grate you wind up with more moisture from the zucchini and while most people would tell you to press any excess moisture out of the zucchini or any vegetable before you put it in the batter, I think it actually adds something to the bread doing it this way and not removing anything. I wish I could say I had tested this out, but honestly, the only reason why I originally grated it by hand was because I am too short to reach the shelf where the processor lives, there was no chair tall enough for me to stand on and I think Moose was out of the house the day I made it. I've been doing it that way ever since.
I use a kitchen-aid stand mixer and place all wet ingredients in the mixer bowl and let them stand while I'm sifting the dry. Then I turn the mixer on medium speed to blend. When I'm ready to add the flour, I turn the mixer down a notch and add the flour in batches until each batch is mixed in. I never turn the mixer off until the last batch of flour has been added and is mixed in. Then I stir the nuts in by hand.
This is the first time I've used whole wheat pastry flour in this recipe. I've always just used plain whole wheat, which I think makes for a denser bread. These ended up looking light and fluffy. I say "looking" because...you know.. I decided to make something that I couldn't eat myself, again.
Results:
Moose thought they were great and commented on how much fluffier these muffins were than the bread. I can only assume it is the pastry flour, or a combination of that and the substitution of maple syrup and grapeseed oil. He snacked on them throughout the day, which did not surprise me.
Rowan ate 2 at breakfast, along with leftover frittata from Sunday and sliced apples. He also snacked on them throughout the day and had one for dessert. This pleases me immensely.
Sarah, our nanny, who got the recipe from me earlier in the summer and baked my modified version, thought the new one was even better!
Max put a small piece to his lips, put it down and refused to eat anything on his tray (read fritatta, apples and muffin). Finally, I broke down and pulled out the block o' cheese and gave him his fix. God help me.
