Courgette Loaf

 

Freshly-baked courgette loaf with lime icing

Courgette Loaf is an easy and effective way of making good use of an over-sized vegetable. Americans would call this recipe Zucchini Bread, but I have decided to stick with its 'English' name. You can also make the recipe with grated carrot. It's fine without icing, but as the third course of a zucchini-based meal a little extra flavour is nice, so I iced this loaf with a water icing where I replaced the water with freshly-squeezed lime juice. Enjoy!

Courgette Loaf

Ingredients

1 cup grated courgette

1 large or 2 small eggs

half cup light olive or soya oil

½ - ¾ cup raw sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups flour (wholemeal, white, or your preferred combination)

pinch of salt

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon OR allspice

½ cup sultanas AND/OR chopped walnuts (optional)

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C and grease a large loaf tin well.

In a large bowl, mix the grated courgette, egg, oil, sugar and vanilla essence. Sift in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon, and mix well. Add nuts or sultanas, if using.

The mixture should be quite moist.

Bake for 45 minutes, test to see if a skewer comes out clean, bake a little longer if it does not.

Ice (if desired) with a water icing made with fresh lime, lemon or orange juice instead of the water.