Stealing Ramekins

One of the great things about buying weekly grocery's from a farmer's market is that you get fresh, preservative free food. One of the problems is it tends to spoil quicker then the preservative laden, prewashed, cut and bagged produce from the supermarket. I think we purchased a little more than we could cook on this first trip and by Tuesday our zucchini's were getting soft. I've been wanting to make zucchini bread. My history with breads is a little suspect - I've tried and tried to make GOOD banana bread and failed at every attempt - I must have tried at least half a dozen times! I've tried using yogurt, oil, butter, more than three bananas, frozen bananas, adding chocolate - you name it...I've tried it - all with less then satisfactory results. So making this zucchini bread became more of a self-test than anything.

As I've just moved to South Africa I'm still building up my kitchen with staple baking necessities. For fear that K would divorce me - I've decided to do this in increments. I already lied to him about the cost of the ramekins to make the chocohotopots - is it that unbelievable to think that you can buy a ramekin for 75 cents? Needless to say he quickly figured me out! I didn't have any loaf pans so decided to make muffins instead. I combined a few different recipes and added my own chocolate for good measure. I also substituted some of the fat with yogurt - the result was better then my banana bread but I think next time I will use less zucchini - it was a little zucchini-ey (not sure if that's even a word - but you get the point). They turned out beautiful though - soft, good crumb and dotted with bright green zucchini color.

Zucchini Muffins
adapted from Simply Recipes

3 cups grated fresh zucchini - drained
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F

In large bowl, mix together sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the zucchini mixture. Fold in the chocolate.

Line the muffin pan with liners and fill the cups to the top. Bake for 20 mins.